Sourced and curated.

A little rebellion now and then is a good thing.

Thomas Jefferson

1787

★ 9.1

Man is by nature a political animal.

Democracy passes into despotism.

Politics · 350 BC

★ 8.7

Philosophical dialogue · Dialogue · Philosophical literature

Plato, Republic · 375 BC

★ 8.3

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

A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard.

Politics · 350 BC

★ 8.1

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.

Federalist 10 · 1787

★ 7.5

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

Frederick Douglass

1857

★ 7.3

Treatise · Political literature

Where-ever Law ends, Tyranny begins.

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

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.

Federalist 51 · 1788

★ 7.0

Parties must ever exist in a free country.

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

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

Friedrich Engels

Anti-Duhring · 1878

★ 7.0

Political language—and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists—is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

George Orwell

Politics and the English Language · 1946

★ 7.0

Interview

The revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make it fall.

Che Guevara

1967

★ 7.0

Feminist literature

Revolution is the festival of the oppressed.

Germaine Greer

1970

★ 7.0

To govern is to choose.

Pierre-Marc-Gaston de Levis

1808

★ 6.9

Magazine

The best government is that which governs least.

John L. O'Sullivan

1837

★ 6.9

Philosophical literature

Politics makes strange bedfellows.

Charles Dudley Warner

1870

★ 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

TV news · TV program

We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty.

Edward R. Murrow

1954

★ 6.9

Novel

If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers.

Thomas Pynchon

Gravity's Rainbow · 1973

★ 6.9

Politics is show business for ugly people.

Bill Miller

1991

★ 6.9

Philosophical dialogue · Dialogue · Philosophical literature

Democracy, which is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike.

Plato, Republic · 375 BC

★ 5.7

He who is to be a good ruler must have first been ruled.

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

Politics · 335 BC

★ 5.7

Personal journal

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

Autobiography and memoir

The great masses of the people...more easily fall a victim to a big lie than to a little one.

Adolf Hitler

Mein Kampf · 1925

★ 5.4

In politics, if you want anything said, ask a man. If you want anything done, ask a woman.

Margaret Thatcher

1965

★ 5.4

A radical is a man with both feet firmly planted-in the air. A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned to walk forward. A reactionary is a somnambulist walking backwards. A liberal is a man who uses his legs and his hands at the behest...of his head.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

1939

★ 5.3

Essay · Philosophical literature

As long as men worship the Caesars and Napoleons, Caesars and Napoleons will duly arise and make them miserable.

Aldous Huxley

1937

★ 5.2

The government strong enough to give you what you want is strong enough to take it all away.

Barry Goldwater

1964

★ 5.2

Essay · Philosophical literature · Political literature

Every revolutionary ends by becoming either an oppressor or a heretic.

Albert Camus

The Rebel · 1951

★ 4.6

Philosophical dialogue · Dialogue · Philosophical literature

The city in which those who are to rule are least eager to hold office must needs be the best governed and freest from strife.

Therefore, the good of man must be the goal of the science of politics.

Plato, Republic · 375 BC

★ 4.0

Philosophical literature

"Wait" has almost always meant "Never."

The Nicomachean Ethics · 322 BC

★ 4.0

Open letter · Letter

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Letter from Birmingham Jail · 1963

★ 4.0

Philosophical dialogue · Dialogue · Philosophical literature

Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and political greatness and wisdom meet in one, and those commoner natures who pursue either to the exclusion of the other are compelled to stand aside, cities will never have rest from their evils.

It is much safer to be feared than loved.

Plato, Republic · 375 BC

★ 4.0

Treatise · Political literature · Philosophical literature

Niccolo Machiavelli

The Prince · 1527

★ 4.0

Pamphlet · Political literature · Economic literature

The theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.

Karl Marx

The Communist Manifesto · 1848

★ 4.0

Essay · Philosophical literature · Political literature

Liberty consists in doing what one desires.

John Stuart Mill

On Liberty · 1859

★ 4.0

Pamphlet · Political literature

We have it in our power to begin the world over again.

Thomas Paine

Common Sense · 1776

★ 3.9

The vigor of government is essential to the security of liberty.