Written laws are like spiderwebs: they will catch, it is true, the weak and poor but would be torn in pieces by the rich and powerful.
—Anacharsis, c. 550 BCQuotes
He may be a patriot for Austria, but the question is whether he is a patriot for me.
—Emperor Francis Joseph, c. 1850What 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, 1830Envy is the basis of democracy.
—Bertrand Russell, 1930Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
—Lord Acton, 1887Politics is the art of the possible.
—Otto von Bismarck, 1867Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.
—John Wilkes Booth, 1865A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard.
—Martin Luther King Jr., c. 1967The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.
—Thomas Jefferson, 1787I work for a government I despise for ends I think criminal.
—John Maynard Keynes, 1917To be turned from one’s course by men’s opinions, by blame, and by misrepresentation shows a man unfit to hold office.
—Quintus Fabius Maximus, c. 203 BCNo free man shall be taken or imprisoned or dispossessed or outlawed or exiled, or in any way destroyed, nor will we go upon him, nor will we send against him except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.
—Magna Carta, 1215Why 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, 1787