The Quotes canon
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Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
American Revolutionary Period54 quotes
A little rebellion now and then is a good thing. — Thomas Jefferson · 1787Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. — James Madison · 1788Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm. — James Madison · 1787I agree with you, that in Politicks the Middle Way is none at all. — John Adams · 1776The due administration of justice is the firmest pillar of good government. — George Washington · 1789The happiness of society is the end of government. — John Adams · 1776All 54 quotes →Age of Enlightenment15 quotes
Where-ever Law ends, Tyranny begins. — John Locke · 1690A state without some means of change is without the means of its own conservation. — Edmund Burke · 1790During the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war as is of every man against every man. — Thomas Hobbes · 1651The only way whereby any one divests himself of his natural liberty and puts on the bonds of civil society is by agreeing with other men to join and unite into a community. — John Locke · 1690Man being...by nature all free, equal, and independent, no one can be put out of this estate and subjected to the political power of another without his own consent. — John Locke · 1690The great and chief end, therefore, of men's uniting into commonwealths and putting themselves under government is the preservation of their property. — John Locke · 1690All 15 quotes →Classical antiquity10 quotes
Man is by nature a political animal. — Aristotle · 350 BCDemocracy passes into despotism. — Socrates · 375 BCNo tyrant need fear till men begin to feel confident in each other. — Aristotle · 350 BCHe who is to be a good ruler must have first been ruled. — Aristotle · 335 BCDemocracy, which is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike. — Socrates · 375 BCTherefore, the good of man must be the goal of the science of politics. — Aristotle · 322 BCAll 10 quotes →The Renaissance4 quotes
It is much safer to be feared than loved. — Niccolo Machiavelli · 1527Nothing doth more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise. — Francis Bacon · 1625Anyone who campaigns for public office becomes disqualified for holding any office at all. — Thomas More · 1516I will govern according to the common weal, but not according to the common will. — James I · 1621Middle Ages1 quote
And those people should not be listened to who keep saying the voice of the people is the voice of God, since the riotousness of the crowd is always very close to madness. — Alcuin of York · 800Red Scare (McCarthy era)1 quote
We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. — Edward R. Murrow · 1954