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|  Dean Acheson | The limitations imposed by democratic political practices makes it difficult to conduct our foreign affairs in the national interest. | |
| Lord Acton | Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. | |
| Lord Acton | Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is the highest political end. | |
| Lord Acton | Freedom degenerates unless it has to struggle in its own
defence. | |
| Abigail Adams | We have too many high sounding words, and too few actions that correspond with them. | |
| Franklin P. Adams | When the political columnists say 'Every thinking man' they mean themselves, and when candidates appeal to 'Every intelligent voter' they mean everybody who is going to vote for them. | |
| Henry Brooks Adams | Politics, as a practise, whatever its professions, has always been the systematic organization of hatreds. | |
| John Adams | Be not intimidated... nor suffer yourselves to be wheedled out of your liberties by any pretense of politeness, delicacy, or decency. These, as they are often used, are but three different names for hypocrisy, chicanery and cowardice. | |
| John Adams | There is nothing I dread So much, as a Division of the Republick into two great Parties, each arranged under its Leader, and concerting Measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble Apprehension is to be dreaded as the greatest political Evil, under our Constitution. | |
| John Adams | If a majority are capable of preferring their own private interest, or that of their families, counties, and party, to that of the nation collectively, some provision must be made in the constitution, in favor of justice, to compel all to respect the common right, the public good, the universal law, in preference to all private and partial considerations... And that the desires of the majority of the people are often for injustice and inhumanity against the minority, is demonstrated by every page of history... To remedy the dangers attendant upon the arbitrary use of power, checks, however multiplied, will scarcely avail without an explicit admission some limitation of the right of the majority to exercise sovereign authority over the individual citizen... In popular governments [democracies], minorities [individuals] constantly run much greater risk of suffering from arbitrary power than in absolute monarchies... | |
| John Adams | Nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people. | |
| John Adams | I Said to my Wife, I have accepted a Seat in the House of Representatives and thereby have consented to my own Ruin to your Ruin and the Ruin of our Children. I give you this Warning that you may prepare your Mind for your Fate. | |
| John Quincy Adams | All the public business in Congress now connects itself with intrigues, and there is great danger that the whole government will degenerate into a struggle of cabals. | |
| Mike Adams | Sadly today, much of the political Left has become a hate group. As a hate group, they truly believe they alone have the unique right to censor others, to defame others, even to violently attack and murder others whose speech they don’t like. This is now evident everywhere throughout Leftist culture, including in Hollywood and the Oscars. With Google clearly being run by Leftists, and Facebook run by Leftists, and most of the internet gatekeepers dominated by intolerant Leftists, the shocking realization is that none of us are safe from the hatred, intolerance and censorship of the techno-liberals who tell themselves “the ends justify the means” to silence Trump supporters and defame those who support Trump. | |
| Samuel Adams | The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil Constitution,
are worth defending at all hazards;
and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks.
We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors:
they purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure
and blood, and transmitted them to us with care and diligence.
It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation,
enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us
by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them
by the artifices of false and designing men. | |
| Samuel Adams | It is a very great mistake to imagine that the object of loyalty is the authority and interest of one individual man, however dignified by the applause or enriched by the success of popular actions. | |
| Samuel Adams | If ever a time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in Government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin. | |
| Samuel Adams | It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds. | |
| Felix Adler | Dogma is the convictions of one man imposed authoritatively upon others. | |
| Aesop | We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office. | |
| Henry David Aiken | From a “pragmatic” point of view, political philosophy is a monster, and whenever it has been taken seriously, the consequence, almost invariably, has been revolution, war, and eventually, the police state. | |
| Roger Ailes | The news is like a ship. If you take hands off the wheel, it pulls hard to the left. | |
| Saul Alinsky | A free and open society is an ongoing conflict, interrupted periodically by compromises. | |
| Gary Allen | If one understands that Socialism is not a “share the wealth” program but is in reality a method to consolidate and control the wealth, then the seeming paradox of super rich men promoting Socialism becomes no paradox at all. Instead it becomes logical, even the perfect tool of power-seeking megalomaniacs. Communism, or more accurately Socialism, is not a movement of the down-trodden masses but of the economic elite. | |
| Woody Allen | We stand today at a crossroads: One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other leads to total extinction. Let us hope we have the wisdom to make the right choice. | |
| American Library Association | The freedom to read is essential to our democracy. It is continuously under attack… These actions apparently arise from a view that our national tradition of free expression is no longer valid; that censorship and suppression are needed to avoid the subversion of politics and the corruption of morals. | |
| Oscar Ameringer | Politics is the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich, by promising to protect each from the other. | |
| Henri-Frédéric Amiel | The test of every religious, political, or educational system is the man that it forms. | |
| Henri Frederic Amiel | Philosophy means the complete liberty of the mind, and therefore independence of all social, political or religious prejudice... It loves one thing only... truth. | |
| Henri Frederic Amiel | The test of every religious, political, or educational system, is the man which it forms. If a system injures the intelligence it is bad. If it injures the character it is vicious. If it injures the conscience it is criminal. | |
| Amnesty International | The USA was founded in the name of democracy, equality and individual freedom, but is failing to deliver the fundamental promise of protecting rights for all. | |
| Anacharsis | These decrees of yours are no different from spiders' webs. They'll restrain anyone weak and insignificant who gets caught in them, but they'll be torn to shreds by people with power and wealth. | |
| Anacharsis | The forum [is] an established place for men to cheat one another, and behave covetously. | |
| Saint Thomas Aquinas | Because of the diverse conditions of humans, it happens that some acts are virtuous to some people, as appropriate and suitable to them, while the same acts are immoral for others, as inappropriate to them. | |
| Hannah Arendt | No cause is left but the most ancient of all, the one, in fact, that from the beginning of our history has determined the very existence of politics, the cause of freedom versus tyranny. | |
| Aristophanes | You have all the characteristics of a popular politician: a horrible voice, bad breeding, and a vulgar manner. | |
| Aristophanes | Under every stone lurks a politician. | |
| Aristotle | The basis of a democratic state is liberty. | |
| Aristotle | Man is by nature a political animal. | |
| Richard Armey | Three groups spend other people's money: children, thieves, politicians. All three need supervision. | |
| Matthew Arnold | Believe me, it is not failing to speak out with promptitude and energy that is the matter with you; it is having nothing consistent or valuable to say. | |
| Thurman Arnold | [The US has] developed two coordinate governing classes:
the one, called ‘business,' building cities, manufacturing
and distributing goods, and holding complete and autocratic
power over the livelihood of millions;
the other, called ‘government,' concerned with preaching and
exemplification of spiritual ideals, so caught in a mass of
theory, that when it wished to move in a practical world it
had to do so by means of a sub rosa political machine. | |
| Isaac Asimov | Politically popular speech has always been protected: even the Jews were free to say ‘Heil Hitler.’ | |
| Isaac Asimov | Politically popular speech has always been protected: even the Jews were free to say ‘Heil Hitler.’ | |
| W. H. Auden | Political history is far too criminal and pathological to be a fit subject of study for the young. Children should acquire their heroes and villains from fiction. | |
| Augustine of Hippo | Put no faith in salvation through the political order. | |
| Caesar Augustus | I found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble. | |
| Benjamin Franklin Bache | All governments are more or less combinations against the people...and as rulers have no more virtue than the ruled...the power of government can only be kept within its constituted bounds by the display of a power equal to itself, the collected sentiment of the people. | |
| Michael Badnarik | The Democrats and Republicans stand at two extremes, characterized by which parts of our lives they emphasize their desire to control. Libertarians reject both extremes in favor of the government leaving control of your life to you. | |
| Ben H. Bagdikian | In the US, voters cast ballots for individual candidates who are not bound to any party program except rhetorically, and not always then. Some Republicans are more liberal than some Democrats, some libertarians are more radical than some socialists, and many local candidates run without any party identification. No American citizen can vote intelligently without knowledge of the ideas, political background, and commitments of each individual candidate. | |
| F. Lee Bailey | Can any of you seriously say the Bill of Rights could get through Congress today? It wouldn't even get out
of committee. | |
| Mikhail A. Bakunin | The right to unite freely and to separate freely is the first and most important of all political rights. | |
| James Baldwin | The price one pays for pursuing any profession, or calling, is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side. | |
| William Barr | In any age, the so-called progressives treat politics as their religion. Their holy mission is to use the coercive power of the State to remake man and society in their own image, according to an abstract ideal of perfection. Whatever means they use are therefore justified because, by definition, they are a virtuous people pursing a deific end. They are willing to use any means necessary to gain momentary advantage in achieving their end, regardless of collateral consequences and the systemic implications. They never ask whether the actions they take could be justified as a general rule of conduct, equally applicable to all sides. | |
| Dave Barry | The Democrats seem to be basically nicer people, but they have demonstrated time and time again that they have the management skills of celery. They're the kind of people who'd stop to help you change a flat, but would somehow manage to set your car on fire. I would be reluctant to entrust them with a Cuisinart, let alone the economy. The Republicans, on the other hand, would know how to fix your tire, but they wouldn't bother to stop because they'd want to be on time for Ugly Pants Night at the country club. | |
| Mayor Marion Barry | The contagious people of Washington have stood firm against diversity during this long period of increment weather. | |
| Mayor Marion Barry | I am making this trip to Africa because Washington is an international city, just like Tokyo, Nigeria or Israel. As mayor, I am an international symbol. Can you deny that to Africa? | |
| Mayor Marion Barry | If you take out the killings, Washington actually has a very, very low crime rate. | |
| Alan Barth | Thought that is silenced is always rebellious. Majorities, of course, are often mistaken. This is why the silencing of minorities is necessarily dangerous. Criticism and dissent are the indispensable antidote to major delusions. | |
| Bruce Bartlett | Democrats will play the old Washington game of calling reductions in the rate of growth of spending for any program a 'cut'. | |
| Frederic Bastiat | When law and morality contradict each other,
the citizen has the cruel alternative
of either losing his moral sense
or losing his respect for the law. | |
| Frederic Bastiat | Everyone wants to live at the expense of the state. They forget that the state lives at the expense of everyone. | |
| Frederic Bastiat | Men naturally rebel against the injustice of which they are victims. Thus, when plunder is organized by law for the profit of those who make the law, all the plundered classes try somehow to enter -- by peaceful or revolutionary means -- into the making of laws. According to their degree of enlightenment, these plundered classes may propose one of two entirely different purposes when they attempt to attain political power: Either they may wish to stop lawful plunder, or they may wish to share in it. | |
| Frederic Bastiat | As long as the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting to gain access to the legislature as well as fighting within it. | |
| Frederic Bastiat | It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder. | |
| Frederic Bastiat | The state is the great fictitious entity by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else. | |
| Frederic Bastiat | The worst thing that can happen to a good cause is not to be skillfully attacked, but to be ineptly defended. | |