Whether for good or evil, it is sadly inevitable that all political leadership requires the artifices of theatrical illusion. In the politics of a democracy, the shortest distance between two points is often a crooked line.
—Arthur Miller, 2001Quotes
You have all the characteristics of a popular politician: a horrible voice, bad breeding, and a vulgar manner.
—Aristophanes, c. 424 BCA government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul.
—George Bernard Shaw, 1944I shall be an autocrat: that’s my trade. And the good Lord will forgive me: that’s his.
—Catherine the Great, c. 1796Let him who desires peace prepare for war.
—Vegetius, c. 385The Revolution is made by man, but man must forge his revolutionary spirit from day to day.
—Che Guevara, 1968People revere the Constitution yet know so little about it—and that goes for some of my fellow senators.
—Robert Byrd, 2005A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard.
—Martin Luther King Jr., c. 1967The most hateful torment for men is to have knowledge of everything but power over nothing.
—Herodotus, c. 425 BCNatural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense—nonsense upon stilts.
—Jeremy Bentham, c. 1832Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.
—John Wilkes Booth, 1865I am invariably of the politics of the people at whose table I sit, or beneath whose roof I sleep.
—George Borrow, 1843In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in folly.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1830