I shall be an autocrat: that’s my trade. And the good Lord will forgive me: that’s his.
—Catherine the Great, c. 1796Quotes
Politics, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.
—Ambrose Bierce, 1906Treaties, you see, are like girls and roses: they last while they last.
—Charles de Gaulle, 1963The 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, 2005The more corrupt the republic, the more numerous the laws.
—Tacitus, c. 117All the ills of democracy can be cured by more democracy.
—Al Smith, 1933Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.
—Paul Valéry, 1943Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
—Lord Acton, 1887There is no method by which men can be both free and equal.
—Walter Bagehot, 1863In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in folly.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1830Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.
—E.B. White, 1944Written 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 BC