POLITICS, ETC
DEMOCRACY DEFINED:
Theodore Parker (1810-60), The American Idea. Speech at N.E. Anti-Slavery Convention, Boston (May 29, 1850). “Discourses Of Slavery” (1863):
“A democracy, that is, a government of all the people, by all the people, for all the people; of course, a government after the principles of eternal justice, the unchanging law of God; for shortness’ sake, I will call it the idea of freedom”.
Daniel Webster (1782-1852), Second Speech in the Senate on Foot’s Resolution (Jan 26, 1830):
“The people’s government, made for the people, made by the people, and answerable to the people”.
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), “Soul Of Man Under Socialism”:
“Democray means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people”.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950):
“Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for the appointment by the corrupt few”.
Thomas Paine (1737-1809), “Common Sense”:
“Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one”.
POWER WITH PEOPLE:
Acluin (735-804), Letter to Charlemagne (800), “Works, Epis”:
“Vox populi, vox dei” (The voice of the people is the voice of God).
Archbishop Walter Reynolds (De Reynel/Reginald; d. 1327), Text of Shermon when Edward III ascended the throne (Feb 1, 1327); Walsingham, Historic Anglicanus (1863):
“Vox Populi,, vox dei” (The voice of the people, the voice of God).
Edmund Burke (1729-97), Speech on the Economical Reform (1780):
“The people are the masters”.
Edmund Burke (1729-97), “Tracts on the Popery Laws”:
“In all forms of Government the people is the true legislator”.
Rev. Sydney Smith (1771-1845):
“Minorities…are almost always in the right”.
Horace Walpole, Fourth Earl Of Oxford (1717-97), To Horace Mann (Sept 7, 1743):
“Our supreme governors, the mob”.
Benjamin Franklin (1706-90), Remark to John Hancock, at Signing of the Declaratio of Independence (July 4, 1778):
“We must indeed all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately”.
John Ruskin (1819-1900):
“Government and co-operation are in all things the laws of life; anarchy and competition the laws of death”.
POWER CORRUPTS:
Sir J.E.E. Dalberg 1st Baron Acton, Letter in Life of Mandell Creighton (1904):
“Power tends to corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely”.
Anthony Trollope (1815-82), (Duke of Omnium) The Prime Minister:
“We know that power does corrupt”.
Edmund Burke (1729-97), Speech on the Middlesex Election (1771):
“The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse”.
Edmund Burke (1729-97), Letter to a member of the National Assembly:
“Those who have been once intoxicated with power, and have derived any kind of emolument from it, even though but for one year, can never willingly abandon it”.
Sir William Jones (1746-94), “Lord Teignmouth’s Life Of Sir W. Jones” (1835), Vol I. Letter To Lord Althorpe (Oct 5, 1782):
“My opinion is, that power should always be distrusted, in whatever hands it is placed”.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), “To Tench Coxe” (1799):
“Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on them (offices), a rottenness begins in his conduct”.
William Pitt, Earl of Chatham (1708-78), House of Lords (Jan 9, 1770):
“Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it”.
Edmund Burke (1729-97), Speech on the Economical Reform (1780):
“Corrupt influence, which is itself the perennial spring of all prodigality, and of all disorder; which loads us, more than millions of debt; which takes away vigour from our arms, wisdom from our councils, and every shadow of authority and credit from the most venerable parts of our constitution ”.
Edmund Burke (1729-97), Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol:
“Among a people generally corrupt. Liberty cannot long exist”.
POWER WITH THE FEW:
William Ross Wallace (d.1881), “John o’London’s Treasure Trove”:
“The hand that rocks the cradle
Is the hand that rules the world”.
Virgil (70-19 B.C.), “Eclogue”:
“Non omnia possums omnes” (All power is not to all).
William Hazlitt (1778-1830), “Lectures On The English Poets. Lecture VIII, On The Living Poets”:
“The temple of flame stands upon the grave: the flame that burns upon its alters is kindled from the ashes of great men”.
REFORM, REVOLUTIONS, ETC:
Edmund Burke (1729-97), A Letter to a Noble Lord (1776):
“To innovate is not to reform”.
Edmund Burke (1729-97), “Reflections on the Revolution in France”:
“Our patience will achieve more than our force”.
Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield (1804-81), Speech, House of Commons (Feb 22, 1848):
“A precedent embalms a principle”.
Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield (1804-81), Speech, House of Commons (Feb 28, 1859):
“Finality is not the language of politics”.
Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield (1804-81), “Coningsby”:
“The depository of power is always unpopular”.
Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield (1804-81), “Coningsby”:
“I have been ever of opinion that that revolutions are not to be evaded”.
John Dryden (1631-1700):
“Never was patriot yet, but was a fool”.
Alexandre Dumas (1802-70), “Les Trois Mousquetiers, Passim”:
“Tous pour un, un pour tous” (All for one, one for all).
William Hazlitt (1778-1830), “Sketches And Essays. On Prejudice”:
“We never do anything well till we cease think about the manner of doing it”.
PROPORGANDA:
William Hazlitt (1778-1830), “On Prejudice”:
“The most fluent talkers or most plausible reasoners are not always the justest thinkers”.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626), “Of Cunning”:
“Nothing doth more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise”.
POLITICS & WAR:
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-94), “Familiar Studies Of Men And Books”:
“Politics is perhaps the only profession for which no preparation is thought necessary”.
Otto Eduard Leopold, Fürst (prince) Von Bismarck, Graf (count) von Bismarck-Schönhausen, Herzog (duke) von Lauenburg (1815-1898):
“War is the pursuit of the policies of the state by other means”.
Carl Philipp Gottfried Von Clauswitz (1781-1831):
"War is the continuation of state policy, by other means ".
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-82), “Hyperion” :
“In this world a man must be either anvil or hammer”.
Nicias 470-413 B.C.), Speech to his army after his defeat by the Syracusans (413 B.C.). “Thucydides”:
“άνδρεζ γάρ πόλιζ, καì ού τείχη ούδέ νήεζ άνδρών κεναί” (It is men who make a city, not walls or ships without crews).
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), “The Rejected Statement”:
“Assassination is the extreme form of censorship”.
Tacitus (55-117):
“Assassination is the extreme form of censorship”.
Vegetius (C4th A.D.), De Re Mil.3, prol:
“Qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum” (Let him who desires peace, prepare for war).
Adam Smith (1723-90), “Wealth Of Nations Vol II”:
“To found a great empire for the sole purpose of raising up a people of customers, may at first sight appear a project fit only for a nation of shopkeepers. It is, however, a project altogether unfit for a nation of shopkeepers; but extremely fit for a nation that is governed by shopkeepers”.
HISTORY:
Edmund Waller (1606-87), “Panegyric to My Lord Protector”:
“Illustrious acts high raptures do infuse,
And every conqueror creates a Muse”.
The victors write the history books.
LAWS
ETHICS:
Albert Camus (1913–1960), "The Stranger" (1942):
"Integrity has no rules".
Amy Lowell (1874-1925):
“Those who make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities”.
LIBERTY :
Phrase of unknown origin dating from before the French Revolution. Aulard in “Études et Leçons sur la Révolution Française” (6e sérié) gives the first official use of the phrase in motion passed by the Club des Cordeliers (June 30, 1793):
“Liberté! Égalité Fraternité!
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), Original draft for the “Declaration of Independence”:
“We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable; that all men are created equal and independent, that from equal creation they derive rights inherent and inalienable, among which we are the preservation of life, and liberty, and the pursuit of happiness ”.
“The American Declaration of Independence” (July 4, 1776):
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuits of happiness”.
Hartley Coleridge (1796-1849), “Liberty”:
“But what is Freedom? Rightly understood,
A universal licence to be good”.
John Stuart Mill (1806-73):
“The liberty of the individual must be thus far limited; he must not make himself a nuisance to other people”.
“Liberty consists in doing what one desires”.
John Milton (1608-74), “Tenure Of Kings And Magistrates”:
“None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but licence”.
John Milton (1608-74):
“Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties”.
Oliver Goldsmith (1728-74):
“Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law”.
Pedro Calderón De La Barca (1600-81), “La Vida es Sueño”:
“No se pierde El hacer bien, aun en sueños” (Don’t relinquish, right-doing, even in dreams).
George Orwell (Eric Blair; 1903-50), “Animal Farm”:
“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others”.
Benjamin Franklin (1706-90), To W.S. Smith (Nov 13, 1787):
“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It si its natural maure”.
Common form of “Working men of all countries unite!”. This is the English Translation (1888) by Samuel Moore, revised by Engels, of “Proletarier aller Länder, vereinigt euch!” which concludes the “Communist Manifesto” (1848), by which Marx and Engels, and is quoted as the final words of the “Programme of the Communist International “ (1928):
“Workers of the world Unite!”
Another common form:
“Proletarians of the world, unite!”
Edmund Burke (1729-97), “Reflections On The Revolution In France”:
“Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. Men have a right that these wants should be provided for by this wisdom”.
Francis Bacon (1577-1626), “Advancement In Learning”:
“Man seeketh in society comfort, use, and protection”.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626), “Of Great Place”:
“It is a strange desire to seek power and then to lose liberty”.
Edmund Burke (1729-97), Speech at County Meeting of Buckinghamshire (1784):
“The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion”.
Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield (1804-81), Speech, House of Commons (March 17, 1845):
“Protection is not a principle, but an expedient”.
William Pitt, Earl of Chatham (1708-78):
“Our watchword is security”.
William Hazlitt (1778-1830), “Political Essays”. The Times Newspaper:
“The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves”.
Junius (1770):
“The liberty of the press is the Palladium of all the civil, political, and religious rights….”.
HUMAN RIGHTS:
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), original draft for the “Declaration of Intependence”:
“We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable; that all men are created equal and independent, that from equal creation they derive rights inherent and inalienable, among which we are the preservation of life, and liberty, and the pursuit of happiness ”.
“The American Declaration of Independence” ( July 4, 1776):
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuits of happiness”.
Junius (1770), Letter II (Apr 24, 1769):
“The right of election is the very essence of the constitution”.
John Milton (1608-74):
“Freely we serve, Because we freely love, as in our will
To love or not; in this we stand or fall”.
William Pitt (The Younger; 1759-1806), Speech, House of Commons (Nov 18, 1783):
“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves”.
Charles Stewart Parnell (1846-91):
“No man has a right to fix the boundary of the march of a nation; no man has a right to say to his country – thus far shalt thou go and no further”.
Feançois Quesnay (1694-1774), attr. further to Marquis D’ Argenson, “Mémoires” (1736), “Of Government Interference”:
“Laissez faire, laissez passer” (No interference, and complete freedom of movement).
Mme Roland (1754-93), Lamartine, “Histoire Des Girondins”:
“O liberté! O liberté! que de crimes on comment en ton nom!” (O liberty! O liberty! what crimes are committed in thy name!).
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-78), “The Contrat Social”:
“L’homme est né libre, et partout il est dans les fers” (Man was born free, and everywhere he is in chains).
Herbert Spencer (1820-1903):
“No one can be perfectly free till all are free; no one can be perfectly moral till all are moral; no one can be perfectly happy till all are happy”.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950):
“Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it”.
Pierre-Josepf Proudhon (1809-65), “Qu’est-ce que la Propriété?”:
“La propriété c’est le vol” (Property is theft).
FREE SPEECH:
Charles Prestwich Scoot (1846-1932), In The Manchester Guardian (May 6, 1926):
“The newspaper is of necessary something of a monopoly, and its first duty is to shun the temptations of monopole. Its primary office in the gathering of news. At the peril of its soul it must see that the supply is not tainted. Neither in what it gives, nor in what it does not give, nor in the mode of presentation, must the unclouded face of truth suffer wrong. Comment is free but facts are sacred”.
Voltaire (1694-1778), attrib. in S.G. Tallentyre, “The Friends Of Voltaire” (1907):
“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”.
MAKING THE LAWS:
Francis Bacon (1561-1626), “Essays, II. Of Great Place”:
“Set down to thyself, as well to create good precedents as to follow them”.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626), “Advancenent Of Learning”:
“We are beholden to Machiavel and others, that write what men do, and not what they ought to do”.
Edmund Burke (1729-97), Speech on Conciliation with America (Mar 22, 1775):
“It is not, what a lawyer tells me I may do; but what humanity, reason, and justice, tell me I ought to do”.
Sir Edward Coke (1552-1634):
“Reason is the life of the law, nay the common law itself is nothing else but reason…The law, which is the perfection of reason ”.
Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield (1804-81), Speech, House of Commons (Feb 11, 1851):
“Justice is truth in action”.
Emperor Ferdinand I (1503-64):
“Fiat justitia, et pereat mundus”. (Let justice be done, though the world perish).
José Ortega Y Gasset (1883-1955), “Mirabeau o el Politico”:
“Orden no es una presión que desde fuera se ejerce sobre la sociedad, sino un equilibrio que se suscita en su interior”
(Order is not a pressure which is imposed on society from without, but an equilibrium which is set up from within).
Agathon (525-456 B.C.); attributed to Aristotle (350 B.C.) “The Nicomachean Ethics”.
“Even God cannot change the past”.
Ulysses Simpson Grant (1822-85), Inauguarl Address (March 4, 1869):
“I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution”.
Francis Hutcheson (1694-1746), “Inquiry Into The Original Of Our Ideas Of Beauty And Virtue (1725). Treatise, I”:
“Wisdom denotes the pursuing of the best ends by the best means”.
Francis Hutcheson (1694-1746), “Concerning Moral Good And Evil. Treatise II”:
“That action is best, which procures the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers”.
Samuel Johnson (1709-84), “Rasselas”:
“Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful”.
Emperor Justman (527-565):
"Justitia est constans et perpetua voluntas jus suum cuique tribunes” (Justice is the constant and perpetual wish to ender to every one his due).
Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593), (1769):
“Virtue is the fount whence honour springs”.
William Watson (1559?-1603), “Quodlibets Of Religion And State (1602)”:
“Fiat justitia et ruant coeli” (Let justice be done though the heavens fall).
Publilius Syrus (C1st B.C.):
“Iudex damnatur ubi nocens absolvitur” (The judge is condemned when the guilty is acquitted).
Alexander Pope (1688-1744):
“Know then this truth, enough for man to know,
‘Virtue alone is happiness below’”.
“That true self-love and social are the same”.
John Ruskin (1819-1900):
“Whereas it has long been known and declared that the poor have no right to the property of the rich, I wish it also to be known and declared that the rich have no right to the property of the poor”.
PROBLEMS WITH ‘UNIVERSAL’ LAWS:
Albert Camus (1927), “The Stranger (1942)” :
“Integrity has no rules”.
Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron Macaulay (1800-59):
“Nothing is so useless as a general maxim”.
John Samuel Bewley Monsell (1811-75), Letter to Mr. Wortley Montegu (March 28, 1710):
“General notions are generally wrong”.
John Ruskin (1819-1900):
“Not only is there but one way of doing things rightly, but there is only one way of seeing them, and that is, seeing the whole of them”.
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), “A Tritical Essay Upon The Faculties Of The Mind”:
“Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through”.
Francis Bacon (1577-1626), “Apothegms”:
“…laws were like cobwebs; where the small flies were caught, and the great brake through”.
Voltaire (1694-1778), “Candide”:
“Tout est pour le mieux dans meilleur des mondes possibles” (All is for the best in the best of possible worlds).
Michel Eyquem Montaigne (1533-92):
“La vertu refuse la facilité pour compagne…elle demande un chemin aspre et espineux” (Virtue can have naught to do with ease…It craves a steep and thorny path).
Christopher North (John Wilson; 1785-1854), (May, 1830):
“Laws were made to be broken”.
Publilius Syrus (C1st B.C.), Proverbial, attrib. to Syrus:
“Necessitas non habet legem” (Necessity has no law).
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950):
“The golden rule is there are no golden rules”.
Publilius Syrus (C1st B.C.):
“Necessitas dat legem non ipsa accipit” (Necessity gives the law and does not itself receive).
Marcus Tillius Cicero (106-43 B.C.):
“Silent enim leges inter arma” (Laws are inoperative in war).
William Hazlitt (1778-1830), “On Taste”:
“Rules and models destroy genius and art”.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-82):
“Good men must not obey the laws too well”.
Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield (1804-81), “Coningsby”:
“Man is only truly great when he acts from the passions”.
ECONOMY & POLITICS:
John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946):
“The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed, the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribber of a few years back”.
James Otis (1725-83), Watchword of the American Revolution:
“Taxation without representation is tyranny”.
Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield (1804-81), “To Constituents” (Oct 3, 1868):
“There can be no economy where there is no efficiency”.
Benjamin Franklin (1706-90), “Advice to Young Tradesman” (1748). “Writings”, Vol. II:
“Remember, that time is money”.
Benjamin Franklin (1706-90), Letter to Jean Baptiste Le Roy (Nov 13, 1789). “Writings”, Vol. X:
“But in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes”.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626), “Of Expense”:
“Riches are for spending”.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626), “Of Seditions And Troubles”:
“Money is like muck, not good except it be spread”.
David Hume (1711-76), “Essays. Of Civil Liberty”:
“Avarice, the spur of industry”.
Albert Jay Nock (1873-1945), “Memoirs of a Superfluous Man”:
“It is an economic axiom as old as the hills that goods and services can be paid for only with goods and services”.
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-94), “Beggars”:
“Every one lives by selling something”.
Thomas Tusser (1524-1580), October’s Abstract:
“Naught venture, naught have”.
Unknown:
“Must spend money, to make money”.
RELIGION:
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), “Plays Pleasant And Unpleasant” (1898):
"There is only one religion, though there are a hundred versionsof it".
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