I say violence is necessary. It is as American as cherry pie.
—H. Rap Brown, 1967Quotes
Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made.
—Immanuel Kant, 1784The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all.
—G.K. Chesterton, 1908Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
—Lord Acton, 1887What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him your celebration is a sham.
—Frederick Douglass, 1855Envy is the basis of democracy.
—Bertrand Russell, 1930Treaties, you see, are like girls and roses: they last while they last.
—Charles de Gaulle, 1963Do that which consists in taking no action, and order will prevail.
—Laozi, c. 500 BCThe vice presidency isn’t worth a pitcher of warm piss.
—John Nance Garner, c. 1967Written 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 BCTelevision has made dictatorship impossible, but democracy unbearable.
—Shimon Peres, 1995Natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense—nonsense upon stilts.
—Jeremy Bentham, c. 1832Politics is the art of the possible.
—Otto von Bismarck, 1867