I am invariably of the politics of the people at whose table I sit, or beneath whose roof I sleep.
—George Borrow, 1843Quotes
The first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull.
—Dean Acheson, 1970I shall be an autocrat: that’s my trade. And the good Lord will forgive me: that’s his.
—Catherine the Great, c. 1796The Revolution is made by man, but man must forge his revolutionary spirit from day to day.
—Che Guevara, 1968O citizens, first acquire wealth; you can practice virtue afterward.
—Horace, c. 8 BCThe more corrupt the republic, the more numerous the laws.
—Tacitus, c. 117The most hateful torment for men is to have knowledge of everything but power over nothing.
—Herodotus, c. 425 BCThe vice presidency isn’t worth a pitcher of warm piss.
—John Nance Garner, c. 1967Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.
—John Wilkes Booth, 1865Whether 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, 2001In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in folly.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1830What experience and history teach is this—that nations and governments have never learned anything from history or acted upon any lessons they might have drawn from it.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, 1830Every communist must grasp the truth: “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”
—Mao Zedong, 1938