Archive

Quotes

The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all.

—G.K. Chesterton, 1908

O citizens, first acquire wealth; you can practice virtue afterward.

—Horace, c. 8 BC

The best of all rulers is but a shadowy presence to his subjects.

—Laozi

Every country has the government it deserves.

—Joseph de Maistre, 1811

A real leader is somebody who can help us overcome the limitations of our own individual laziness and selfishness and weakness and fear and get us to do better, harder things than we can get ourselves to do on our own.

—David Foster Wallace, 2000

Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.

—John Wilkes Booth, 1865

The U.S. presidency is a Tudor monarchy plus telephones.

—Anthony Burgess, 1972

You have all the characteristics of a popular politician: a horrible voice, bad breeding, and a vulgar manner.

—Aristophanes, c. 424 BC

Let him who desires peace prepare for war.

—Vegetius, c. 385

In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in folly.

—Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1830

I shall be an autocrat: that’s my trade. And the good Lord will forgive me: that’s his.

—Catherine the Great, c. 1796

All the ills of democracy can be cured by more democracy.

—Al Smith, 1933

Natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense—nonsense upon stilts.

—Jeremy Bentham, c. 1832