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Political theory233 quotes
From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs! — Karl Marx · 1883A little rebellion now and then is a good thing. — Thomas Jefferson · 1787Democracy passes into despotism. — Socrates · 375 BCNo tyrant need fear till men begin to feel confident in each other. — Aristotle · 350 BCWhat I say is that "just" or "right" means nothing but what is to the interest of the stronger party. — Thrasymachus · 375 BCAmbition must be made to counteract ambition. — James Madison · 1788All 233 quotes →Politics112 quotes
From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs! — Karl Marx · 1883A little rebellion now and then is a good thing. — Thomas Jefferson · 1787Democracy passes into despotism. — Socrates · 375 BCNo tyrant need fear till men begin to feel confident in each other. — Aristotle · 350 BCAmbition must be made to counteract ambition. — James Madison · 1788Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm. — James Madison · 1787All 112 quotes →Government35 quotes
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 · 1787It 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. — James Madison · 1788Justice 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. — James Madison · 1788The State is not "abolished", it withers away. — Friedrich Engels · 1878The best government is that which governs least. — John L. O'Sullivan · 1837Whoever 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 · 1531All 35 quotes →Democracy20 quotes
Democracy passes into despotism. — Socrates · 375 BCA 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 · 1795When the masses get involved in reasoning, everything is lost. — Voltaire · 1766It is ESSENTIAL to such a government that it be derived from the great body of the society, not from an inconsiderable proportion, or a favored class of it; otherwise a handful of tyrannical nobles, exercising their oppressions by a delegation of their powers, might aspire to the rank of republicans, and claim for their government the honorable title of republic. — James Madison · 1788Remember Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes exhausts and murders itself. There never was a Democracy Yet, that did not commit suicide. — John Adams · 1814It rests now with ourselves alone to enjoy in peace and concord the blessings of self-government, so long denied to mankind: to shew by example the sufficiency of human reason for the care of human affairs and that the will of the majority, the Natural law of every society, is the only sure guardian of the rights of man. — Thomas Jefferson · 1790All 20 quotes →Freedom16 quotes
The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression, even though that cost be blood. — W.E.B. Du Bois · 1909A free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular. — Adlai Stevenson · 1952Liberty consists in doing what one desires. — John Stuart Mill · 1859Whatever each man can separately do, without trespassing upon others, he has a right to do for himself; and he has a right to a fair portion of all which society, with all its combinations of skill and force, can do in his favor. — Edmund Burke · 1790Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right... and a desire to know-but besides this they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded, and envied kind of knowledge. I mean of the characters and conduct of their rulers. — John Adams · 1765History suggests only that capitalism is a necessary condition for political freedom. Clearly it is not a sufficient condition. — Milton Friedman · 1962All 16 quotes →American politics13 quotes
In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem. — Ronald Reagan · 1981There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America. — Bill Clinton · 1993The 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 · 1787Whatever America hopes to bring to pass in the world must first come to pass in the heart of America. — Dwight D. Eisenhower · 1953Constantly bearing in mind that in entering into society "individuals must give up a share of liberty to preserve the rest," it will be my desire so to discharge my duties as to foster with our brethren in all parts of the country a spirit of liberal concession and compromise. — Andrew Jackson · 1833The judicial power ought to be distinct from both the legislative and the executive, and independent upon both, that so it may be a check upon both, as both should be checks upon that. — John Adams · 1776All 13 quotes →Checks and balances9 quotes
Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. — James Madison · 1788Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm. — James Madison · 1787It will not be denied, that power is of an encroaching nature, and that it ought to be effectually restrained from passing the limits assigned to it. — James Madison · 1788The defect must be supplied, by so contriving the interior structure of the government as that its several constituent parts may, by their mutual relations, be the means of keeping each other in their proper places. — James Madison · 1788An elective despotism was not the government we fought for; but one which should not only be founded on free principles, but in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among several bodies of magistracy, as that no one could transcend their legal limits, without being effectually checked and restrained by the others. — James Madison · 1788In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. — James Madison · 1788All 9 quotes →Limited government9 quotes
In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem. — Ronald Reagan · 1981The best government is that which governs least. — John L. O'Sullivan · 1837The government strong enough to give you what you want is strong enough to take it all away. — Barry Goldwater · 1964My 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 · 2001A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have. — Gerald Ford · 1960I heartily accept the motto,—"That government is best which governs least";... Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which I also believe,—"That government is best which governs not at all." — Henry David Thoreau · 1848All 9 quotes →Revolution9 quotes
A little rebellion now and then is a good thing. — Thomas Jefferson · 1787No tyrant need fear till men begin to feel confident in each other. — Aristotle · 350 BCEvery revolutionary ends by becoming either an oppressor or a heretic. — Albert Camus · 1951Every revolution was first a thought in one man's mind. — Ralph Waldo Emerson · 1841The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative on the day after the revolution. — Hannah Arendt · 1970A revolution does not last more than fifteen years, the period which coincides with the flourishing of a generation. — Jose Ortega y Gasset · 1930All 9 quotes →Human nature7 quotes
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 · 1787It 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. — James Madison · 1788Whoever 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 · 1531If all men were just, there still would be some, though not so much, need of government. — Abraham Lincoln · 1854It is necessary for him who lays out a state and arranges laws for it to presuppose that all men are evil and that they are always going to act according to the wickedness of their spirits whenever they have free scope. — Niccolo Machiavelli · 1531Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary. — Reinhold Niebuhr · 1944All 7 quotes →Role of government7 quotes
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 · 1987The government strong enough to give you what you want is strong enough to take it all away. — Barry Goldwater · 1964The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. — Thomas Jefferson · 1785A simple and a proper function of government is just to make it easy for us to do good and difficult for us to do wrong. — Jimmy Carter · 1976I repeat... That all power is a trust - that we are accountable for its exercise - that, from the people, and for the people, all springs, and all must exist. — Benjamin Disraeli · 1826The secular State is the guarantee of religious pluralism. This apparent paradox, again, is the simplest and most elegant of political truths. — Christopher Hitchens · 1998All 7 quotes →Legal theory6 quotes
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 · 1816Laws are silent in time of war. — Cicero · 52 BCThe interpretation of the laws is the proper and peculiar province of the courts. — Alexander Hamilton · 1788I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution. — Ulysses S. Grant · 1869A constitution is, in fact, and must be regarded by the judges, as a fundamental law. It therefore belongs to them to ascertain its meaning, as well as the meaning of any particular act proceeding from the legislative body. If there should happen to be an irreconcilable variance between the two, that which has the superior obligation and validity ought, of course, to be preferred; or, in other words, the Constitution ought to be preferred to the statute, the intention of the people to the intention of their agents. — Alexander Hamilton · 1788The relative freedom which we enjoy depends of public opinion. The law is no protection. Governments make laws, but whether they are carried out, and how the police behave, depends on the general temper in the country. If large numbers of people are interested in freedom of speech, there will be freedom of speech, even if the law forbids it; if public opinion is sluggish, inconvenient minorities will be persecuted, even if laws exist to protect them. — George Orwell · 1945Political compromise6 quotes
Politics is the art of the possible. — Otto von Bismarck · 1867All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter. — Edmund Burke · 1775If mankind were to resolve to agree in no institution of government, until every part of it had been adjusted to the most exact standard of perfection, society would soon become a general scene of anarchy, and the world a desert. — Alexander Hamilton · 1788Constantly bearing in mind that in entering into society "individuals must give up a share of liberty to preserve the rest," it will be my desire so to discharge my duties as to foster with our brethren in all parts of the country a spirit of liberal concession and compromise. — Andrew Jackson · 1833We believe, and I think properly, that when the men who met in 1787 to make a Constitution made the best political document ever made, they did so very largely because they were great compromisers. — Learned Hand · 1951The condition of our survival in any but the meagerest existence is our willingness to accommodate ourselves to the conflicting interests of others, to learn to live in a social world. — Learned Hand · 1931Property rights6 quotes
The theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property. — Karl Marx · 1848All Property indeed, except the Savage’s temporary Cabin, his Bow, his Matchcoat, and other little Acquisitions absolutely necessary for his Subsistence, seems to me to be the Creature of public Convention. Hence the Public has the Right of Regulating Descents & all other Conveyances of Property, and even of limiting the Quantity & the Uses of it. — Benjamin Franklin · 1783The great and chief end, therefore, of men's uniting into commonwealths and putting themselves under government is the preservation of their property. — John Locke · 1690No man made the land. It is the original inheritance of the whole species. Its appropriation is wholly a question of general expediency. When private property in land is not expedient, it is unjust. — John Stuart Mill · 1848The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government. From the protection of different and unequal faculties of acquiring property, the possession of different degrees and kinds of property immediately results. — James Madison · 1787Upon the sacredness of property civilization itself depends-the right of the laborer to his hundred dollars in the savings bank, and equally the legal right of the millionaire to his millions. — Andrew Carnegie · 1889Rule of law6 quotes
Where-ever Law ends, Tyranny begins. — John Locke · 1690Laws are silent in time of war. — Cicero · 52 BCTo correct the evils, great and small, which spring from want of sympathy and from positive enmity, among strangers, as nations or as individuals, is one of the highest functions of civilization. — Abraham Lincoln · 1859He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself. — Thomas Paine · 1795Wherever a knave is not punished, an honest man is laughed at. — George Savile, Lord Halifax · 1750But there is another element, more important than all, without which there can not be the slightest hope of a permanent peace. That element lies in the heart of humanity. Unless the desire for peace be cherished there, unless this fundamental and only natural source of brotherly love be cultivated to its highest degree, all artificial efforts will be in vain. Peace will come when there is realization that only under a reign of law, based on righteousness and supported by the religious conviction of the brotherhood of man, can there be any hope of a complete and satisfying life. — Calvin Coolidge · 1925Tyranny6 quotes
Democracy passes into despotism. — Socrates · 375 BCNo tyrant need fear till men begin to feel confident in each other. — Aristotle · 350 BCWhere-ever Law ends, Tyranny begins. — John Locke · 1690The 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. — James Madison · 1788The fundamental Article of my political Creed is, that Despotism, or unlimited Sovereignty, or absolute Power is the same in a Majority of a popular Assembly, and Aristocratical Counsel, an Oligarchical Junto and a Single Emperor. — John Adams · 1813In all tyrannical governments, the supreme magistracy, or the right both of making and of enforcing the laws, is vested in one and the same man, or one and the same body of men; and wherever these two powers are united together, there can be no public liberty. — William Blackstone · 1769International politics5 quotes
Gratitude, like love, is never a dependable international emotion. — Joseph Alsop · 1952Negotiations are a euphemism for capitulation if the shadow of power is not cast across the bargaining table. — George Shultz · 1986We have no eternal allies and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and these interests it is our duty to follow. — Henry John Temple · 1848Excessive dealings with tyrants are not good for the security of free states. — Demosthenes · 343 BCNo nation can longer be a fortress, lone and strong and safe. And any people, seeking such shelter for themselves, can now build only their own prison. — Dwight D. Eisenhower · 1957Justice5 quotes
What I say is that "just" or "right" means nothing but what is to the interest of the stronger party. — Thrasymachus · 375 BCJustice 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. — James Madison · 1788You 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. — Thucydides · 404 BCJustice is not to be taken by storm. She is to be wooed by slow advances. — Benjamin Cardozo · 1923Justice 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 · 1971Law5 quotes
Where-ever Law ends, Tyranny begins. — John Locke · 1690Laws are silent in time of war. — Cicero · 52 BCThe 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 · 1532I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution. — Ulysses S. Grant · 1869Wherever a knave is not punished, an honest man is laughed at. — George Savile, Lord Halifax · 1750Minority rights5 quotes
In a society under the forms of which the stronger faction can readily unite and oppress the weaker, anarchy may as truly be said to reign as in a state of nature. — James Madison · 1788A majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations, and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people. Whoever rejects it does, of necessity, fly to anarchy or to despotism. — Abraham Lincoln · 1861All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression. — Thomas Jefferson · 1801It is of great importance in a republic not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers, but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part. — James Madison · 1788Different interests necessarily exist in different classes of citizens. If a majority be united by a common interest, the rights of the minority will be insecure. — James Madison · 1788Power5 quotes
Every Communist must grasp the truth: "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." — Mao Zedong · 1938It will not be denied, that power is of an encroaching nature, and that it ought to be effectually restrained from passing the limits assigned to it. — James Madison · 1788Negotiations are a euphemism for capitulation if the shadow of power is not cast across the bargaining table. — George Shultz · 1986No man is good enough to govern another man, without that other's consent. — Abraham Lincoln · 1854Power and violence are opposites; where the one rules absolutely, the other is absent. — Hannah Arendt · 1969Progress5 quotes
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. — James Madison · 1788Finality, Sir, is not the language of politics. — Benjamin Disraeli · 1859Freedom and incentives unleash the drive and entrepreneurial genius that are the core of human progress. — Ronald Reagan · 1985Things in life will not always run smoothly. Sometimes we will be rising toward the heights—then all will seem to reverse itself and start downward. The great fact to remember is that the trend of civilization itself is forever upward; that a line drawn through the middle of the peaks and the valleys of the centuries always has an upward trend. — Franklin D. Roosevelt · 1945Can authority be more amiable and respectable when it descends from accidents or institutions established in remote antiquity than when it springs fresh from the hearts and judgments of an honest and enlightened people? — John Adams · 1797Separation of powers5 quotes
Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. — James Madison · 1788The defect must be supplied, by so contriving the interior structure of the government as that its several constituent parts may, by their mutual relations, be the means of keeping each other in their proper places. — James Madison · 1788An elective despotism was not the government we fought for; but one which should not only be founded on free principles, but in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among several bodies of magistracy, as that no one could transcend their legal limits, without being effectually checked and restrained by the others. — James Madison · 1788Each department should have a will of its own; and consequently should be so constituted that the members of each should have as little agency as possible in the appointment of the members of the others. — James Madison · 1788In all tyrannical governments, the supreme magistracy, or the right both of making and of enforcing the laws, is vested in one and the same man, or one and the same body of men; and wherever these two powers are united together, there can be no public liberty. — William Blackstone · 1769Communism4 quotes
From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs! — Karl Marx · 1883The State is not "abolished", it withers away. — Friedrich Engels · 1878The theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property. — Karl Marx · 1848Communism is based on the belief that man is so weak and inadequate that he is unable to govern himself, and therefore requires the rule of strong masters. Democracy is based on the conviction that man has the moral and intellectual capacity, as well as the inalienable right, to govern himself with reason and justice. — Harry Truman · 1949Conservatism4 quotes
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 · 1987The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative on the day after the revolution. — Hannah Arendt · 1970A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have. — Gerald Ford · 1960The central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society. The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself. — Daniel Patrick Moynihan · 1985Moral theory4 quotes
What I say is that "just" or "right" means nothing but what is to the interest of the stronger party. — Thrasymachus · 375 BCThe greatest good to the greatest number is the object to be attained. — Ulysses S. Grant · 1869The greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation. — Jeremy Bentham · 1832Those who are called upon to administer it must recognize as its leading principle the duty of shaping their measures so as to produce the greatest good to the greatest number. — William Henry Harrison · 1841Political faction4 quotes
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. — James Madison · 1787Different interests necessarily exist in different classes of citizens. If a majority be united by a common interest, the rights of the minority will be insecure. — James Madison · 1788The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man; and we see them everywhere brought into different degrees of activity, according to the different circumstances of civil society. — James Madison · 1787A landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile interest, a moneyed interest, with many lesser interests, grow up of necessity in civilized nations, and divide them into different classes, actuated by different sentiments and views. The regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation, and involves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of the government. — James Madison · 1787Political progress4 quotes
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. — James Madison · 1788If 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 · 1926Finality, Sir, is not the language of politics. — Benjamin Disraeli · 1859Things in life will not always run smoothly. Sometimes we will be rising toward the heights—then all will seem to reverse itself and start downward. The great fact to remember is that the trend of civilization itself is forever upward; that a line drawn through the middle of the peaks and the valleys of the centuries always has an upward trend. — Franklin D. Roosevelt · 1945Purpose of government4 quotes
The happiness of society is the end of government. — John Adams · 1776The great and chief end, therefore, of men's uniting into commonwealths and putting themselves under government is the preservation of their property. — John Locke · 1690To correct the evils, great and small, which spring from want of sympathy and from positive enmity, among strangers, as nations or as individuals, is one of the highest functions of civilization. — Abraham Lincoln · 1859The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government. — Thomas Jefferson · 1809The masses4 quotes
When the masses get involved in reasoning, everything is lost. — Voltaire · 1766Nor is the people's judgment always true:
The most may err as grossly as the few. — John Dryden · 1681And 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 · 800All communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The first are the rich and well born, the other the mass of the people... The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right. Give therefore to the first class a distinct, permanent share in the government. They will check the unsteadiness of the second, and as they cannot receive any advantage by a change, they therefore will ever maintain good government. — Alexander Hamilton · 1787