Quotes about Politics

Untried forms of government may, to unstable minds, recommend themselves even by their novelty.

My principles enable me to form my judgment upon men and actions in history, just as they do in common life, and are not formed out of events and characters, either present or past. History is a preceptor of prudence, not of principles. The principles of true politics are those of morality enlarged; and I neither now do, nor ever will, admit of any other.

There is no qualification for government but virtue and wisdom, actual or presumptive.

All modern revolutions have ended in a reinforcement of the State.

The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants

Even to observe neutrality you must have a strong government.

We are now forming a republican government. Real liberty is neither found in despotism or the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments.

In politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecution.

Men of factious tempers, of local prejudices, or of sinister designs, may, by intrigue, by corruption, or by other means, first obtain the suffrages, and then betray the interests, of the people.

It is too early for politicians to presume on our forgetting that the public good, the real welfare of the great body of the people, is the supreme object to be pursued.

For in politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecution. And

Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires.