The demagogue, putting up the people with words, sways them to his interest. When calamity follows, he escapes from justice.

— Euripides (485-406 B.C.), Greek tragic dramatist

The appetite for power is old and irrepressible in humankind, and in its action almost always destructive. When exercised for the seizure of territory or suppression of liberties, it cannot be said to add to the welfare or happiness or improve the quality of life of those it rules, nor bring content to the ruler. What is it good for? As an inveterate activity of our species, it is largely a waste of time.

— Barbara Tuchman (1912-1989) American historian and author

Thanks to VRW for the tip.

The democrat is a young conservative; the conservative an old democrat. The aristocrat is the democrat ripe and gone to seed.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), American poet, Unitarian minister, philosopher

A man’s judgment cannot be better than the information on which he has based it … Give him no news or present him only with distorted and incomplete data, with ignorant, sloppy or biased reporting, with propaganda and deliberate falsehoods, and you destroy his whole reasoning process and make him something less than a man.

— Arthur Hayes Sulzberger (1891-1968), publisher of The New York Times

What is a communist? One who has yearnings
For equal division of unequal earnings.
Idler or bungler, or both, he is willing
To fork out his copper and pocket a shilling.

— Ebenezer Elliot (1781-1849), English Chartist poet

What this country needs is a good impeachment. In itself impeachment is not evil or divisive, unless it is done cheaply. If it is done admirably, and it tears the country apart, then the country is so fragile that anything could tear it apart.

— Gail Thain Parker (1941- ), American college administrator, educator, writer

We are in a decaying age. Young people no longer respect their parents. They are rude and impatient. They inhabit taverns and have no self-control.

— Inscription found on a 6,000-year-old Egyptian tomb

Virtue is more to be feared than vice, because its excesses are not subject to the restraints of conscience.

— Albert Jay Nock (1870-1945), influential American libertarian author, educational theorist, social critic

Today, sports are the opiate of the people, television is the opiate of the poor, travel is the opiate of the rich, and opium is the religion of the young.

— Sydney J. Harris (1917-1986), American journalist, newspaper columnist

The very purpose of existence is to reconcile the glowing opinion we hold of ourselves with the appalling things that other people think of us.

— Quentin Crisp (1908-1999), English writer, artist’s model, actor and raconteur