Sourced and curated.

A little rebellion now and then is a good thing.

Thomas Jefferson

1787

★ 9.1

Political literature · Philosophical literature

Man is by nature a political animal.

Aristotle

Politics · 350 BC

★ 8.7

Philosophical dialogue · Dialogue · Philosophical literature

Democracy passes into despotism.

Socrates

Plato, Republic · 375 BC

★ 8.3

Political literature · Philosophical literature

No tyrant need fear till men begin to feel confident in each other.

Aristotle

Politics · 350 BC

★ 8.1

A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

1967

★ 8.0

Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.

Federalist 51 · 1788

★ 7.6

Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm.

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.

Federalist 10 · 1787

★ 7.5

Speech · Political speech

Frederick Douglass

1857

★ 7.3

Treatise · Political literature

Where-ever Law ends, Tyranny begins.

John Locke

Two Treatises of Government · 1690

★ 7.2

Speech · Political speech

Every Communist must grasp the truth: "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun."

Mao Zedong

1938

★ 7.2

I agree with you, that in Politicks the Middle Way is none at all.

John Adams

1776

★ 7.1

Press conference

I did not have sexual relations with that woman.

Bill Clinton

1998

★ 7.1

The due administration of justice is the firmest pillar of good government.

George Washington

1789

★ 7.1

Pamphlet · Political literature

The happiness of society is the end of government.

John Adams

1776

★ 7.1

Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice, without constraint.

A state without some means of change is without the means of its own conservation.

Federalist 15 · 1787

★ 7.1

Political literature

Edmund Burke

Reflections on the Revolution in France · 1790

★ 7.0

Novel

An election is coming. Universal peace is declared, and the foxes have a sincere interest in prolonging the lives of the poultry.

George Eliot

Felix Holt, the Radical · 1866

★ 7.0

It seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force.

Federalist 1 · 1787

★ 7.0

Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires. But it could not be less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction, than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life, because it imparts to fire its destructive agency.

Federalist 10 · 1787

★ 7.0

It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary.

Parties must ever exist in a free country.

Federalist 51 · 1788

★ 7.0

Speech · Political speech

Edmund Burke

On Conciliation with America · 1775

★ 7.0

The fabric of American empire ought to rest on the solid basis of THE CONSENT OF THE PEOPLE. The streams of national power ought to flow immediately from that pure, original fountain of all legitimate authority.

Federalist 22 · 1787

★ 7.0

Of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people; commencing demagogues, and ending tyrants.

Federalist 1 · 1787

★ 7.0

The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, selfappointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.

Federalist 47 · 1788

★ 7.0

The Revolution was effected before the War commenced. The Revolution was in the Minds and Hearts of the People.

John Adams

1818

★ 7.0

Newspaper

Politics is the art of the possible.

Otto von Bismarck

1867

★ 7.0

Political literature · Philosophical literature

The State is not "abolished", it withers away.

Friedrich Engels

Anti-Duhring · 1878

★ 7.0