Sourced and curated.

A little rebellion now and then is a good thing.

Thomas Jefferson

1787

★ 9.1

Philosophical dialogue · Dialogue · Philosophical literature

Democracy passes into despotism.

Socrates

Plato, Republic · 375 BC

★ 8.3

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

Aristotle

Politics · 350 BC

★ 8.1

Philosophical dialogue · Dialogue · Philosophical literature

What I say is that "just" or "right" means nothing but what is to the interest of the stronger party.

Thrasymachus

Plato, Republic · 375 BC

★ 8.1

Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.

Federalist 51 · 1788

★ 7.6

Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm.

Where-ever Law ends, Tyranny begins.

Federalist 10 · 1787

★ 7.5

Treatise · Political literature

John Locke

Two Treatises of Government · 1690

★ 7.2

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

Mao Zedong

1938

★ 7.2

In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.

Ronald Reagan

First Inaugural Address of Ronald Reagan · 1981

★ 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

There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America.

Bill Clinton

First Inaugural Address of Bill Clinton · 1993

★ 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.

Alexander Hamilton

Federalist 15 · 1787

★ 7.1

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.

Federalist 51 · 1788

★ 7.0

Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been and ever will be pursued until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit.

You know as well as we do that right, as the word goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.

Federalist 51 · 1788

★ 7.0

Historical literature

Thucydides

History of the Peloponnesian War · 404 BC

★ 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.

Alexander Hamilton

Federalist 22 · 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.

Politics is the art of the possible.

Federalist 47 · 1788

★ 7.0

Newspaper

Otto von Bismarck

1867

★ 7.0

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

Friedrich Engels

Anti-Duhring · 1878

★ 7.0

The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression, even though that cost be blood.

W.E.B. Du Bois

1909

★ 7.0

Whatever America hopes to bring to pass in the world must first come to pass in the heart of America.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

First Inaugural Address of Dwight D. Eisenhower · 1953

★ 7.0

Magazine

The best government is that which governs least.

John L. O'Sullivan

1837

★ 6.9

Autobiography and memoir

Politics, as a practice, whatever its professions, had always been the systematic organization of hatreds.

Henry Adams

The Education of Henry Adams · 1907

★ 6.9

A free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.

Adlai Stevenson

1952

★ 6.9

Whoever desires to found a state and give it laws, must start with assuming that all men are bad and ever ready to display their vicious nature, whenever they may find occasions for it.

Niccolo Machiavelli

Discourses on Livy · 1531

★ 6.2

Letter · Political writing

Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched... Laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind... We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.

Thomas Jefferson

1816

★ 6.2

The best political community is formed by citizens of the middle class.

Aristotle

Politics · 350 BC

★ 5.7

The ballot is stronger than the bullet.

Abraham Lincoln

1856

★ 5.5

Pamphlet · Political literature

When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary.

Thomas Paine

Common Sense · 1776

★ 5.5

Personal journal

If all men were just, there still would be some, though not so much, need of government.

Abraham Lincoln

1854

★ 5.5

Autobiography and memoir

Modern politics is, at bottom, a struggle not of men but of forces.

Henry Adams

The Education of Henry Adams · 1907

★ 5.4

All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter.

Edmund Burke

On Conciliation with America · 1775

★ 5.3

Every project has been found to be no better than committing the lamb to the custody of the wolf, except that one which is called a balance of power.

John Adams

1789

★ 5.3

We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

John Adams

1798

★ 5.3