You should never have your best trousers on when you go out to fight for freedom and truth.
—Henrik Ibsen, 1882Quotes
I’m president of the United States, and I’m not going to eat any more broccoli!
—George H. W. Bush, 1990The vice presidency isn’t worth a pitcher of warm piss.
—John Nance Garner, c. 1967Natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense—nonsense upon stilts.
—Jeremy Bentham, c. 1832Why has the government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.
—Alexander Hamilton, 1787Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.
—E.B. White, 1944You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.
—Mario Cuomo, 1985Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.
—Paul Valéry, 1943I am invariably of the politics of the people at whose table I sit, or beneath whose roof I sleep.
—George Borrow, 1843The first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull.
—Dean Acheson, 1970If you must take care that your opinions do not differ in the least from those of the person with whom you are talking, you might just as well be alone.
—Yoshida Kenko, c. 1330The Revolution is made by man, but man must forge his revolutionary spirit from day to day.
—Che Guevara, 1968You have all the characteristics of a popular politician: a horrible voice, bad breeding, and a vulgar manner.
—Aristophanes, c. 424 BC