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.

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

There are no necessary evils in the government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favor alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing.

Andrew Jackson

1832

★ 5.3

Speech

Justice is not to be taken by storm. She is to be wooed by slow advances.

Benjamin Cardozo

1923

★ 5.3

Interview

They are casting their problems on society and who is society? There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and there are families and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first.

Margaret Thatcher

1987

★ 5.3

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

Barry Goldwater

1964

★ 5.2

A monarchy is a merchantman which sails well, but will sometimes strike on a rock, and go to the bottom; a republic is a raft which will never sink, but then your feet are always in the water.

Fisher Ames

1795

★ 5.1

If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.

Calvin Coolidge

1926

★ 5.1

Magazine

My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.

Grover Norquist

The Nation · 2001

★ 5.1

Laws are silent in time of war.

Cicero

Pro Milone · 52 BC

★ 4.8

Pamphlet · Political literature · Economic literature

In proportion as the antagonism between classes within the nation vanishes, the hostility of one nation to another will come to an end.

Karl Marx

The Communist Manifesto · 1848

★ 4.8

Treatise · Political literature · Philosophical literature

The chief foundations of all states, new as well as old or composite, are good laws and good arms; and as there cannot be good laws where the state is not well armed, it follows that where they are well armed they have good laws.

Niccolo Machiavelli

The Prince · 1532

★ 4.7

Essay · Philosophical literature · Political literature

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

Albert Camus

The Rebel · 1951

★ 4.6

Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought. A theory however elegant and economical must be rejected or revised if it is untrue; likewise laws and institutions no matter how efficient and well-arranged must be reformed or abolished if they are unjust.

John Rawls

A Theory of Justice · 1971

★ 4.4

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.

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.

Plato, Republic · 375 BC

★ 4.0

Philosophical dialogue · Dialogue · Philosophical literature

When the tyrant has disposed for foreign enemies by conquest or treaty, and there is nothing to fear from them, then he is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader.

Plato, Republic · 375 BC

★ 4.0

Philosophical dialogue · Dialogue · Philosophical literature

He [the prince] holds to what is right when he can but knows how to do wrong when he must.

Plato, Republic · 375 BC

★ 4.0

Treatise · Political literature · Philosophical literature

Niccolo Machiavelli

The Prince · 1532

★ 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

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

Alexander Hamilton

Federalist 1 · 1787

★ 3.9

Essay · Philosophical literature · Political literature

A party of order or stability, and a party of progress or reform, are both necessary elements of a healthy state of political life.

John Stuart Mill

On Liberty · 1859

★ 3.9

The greatest good to the greatest number is the object to be attained.

Ulysses S. Grant

First Inaugural Address of Ulysses S. Grant · 1869

★ 3.9

Philosophical literature

The root of the kingdom is the state. The root of the state is in the family. The root of the family is in the person of its head.

Mencius

300 BC

★ 3.8