Archive

Quotes

Politics is the art of the possible.

—Otto von Bismarck, 1867

A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard.

—Martin Luther King Jr., c. 1967

An appeal to the reason of the people has never been known to fail in the long run.

—James Russell Lowell, c. 1865

The first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull.

—Dean Acheson, 1970

The most hateful torment for men is to have knowledge of everything but power over nothing.

—Herodotus, c. 425 BC

I say violence is necessary. It is as American as cherry pie.

—H. Rap Brown, 1967

Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.

—Paul Valéry, 1943

Do that which consists in taking no action, and order will prevail.

—Laozi, c. 500 BC

What, 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, 1855

He may be a patriot for Austria, but the question is whether he is a patriot for me.

—Emperor Francis Joseph, c. 1850

I shall be an autocrat: that’s my trade. And the good Lord will forgive me: that’s his.

—Catherine the Great, c. 1796

No human life, not even the life of a hermit, is possible without a world which directly or indirectly testifies to the presence of other human beings.

—Hannah Arendt, 1958

The best of all rulers is but a shadowy presence to his subjects.

—Laozi