The HyperTexts

The Best Political Quotes, Quips and Epigrams

This page contains some of the greatest political epigrams of all time. I have worked with the interests of students young and old in mind, so if you want to learn more about political epigrams, hopefully you have found the right "launching pad." Please allow me to begin with a question:

What does this colorful crowd of characters have in common: Alexander the Great, Woody Allen, Aristotle, Yogi Berra, Brutus, Julius Caesar, Catherine the Great, Winston Churchill, Albert Einstein, Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John F. Kennedy, Mohandas Gandhi, Abraham Lincoln, Martial, Groucho Marx, Plato, Will Rogers, Shakespeare, Socrates, Jonathan Swift, Margaret Thatcher, Mark Twain, Voltaire and Oscar Wilde?

Answer: They all produced immortal political epigrams! Here are some stellar examples of the genre ...

Politics is the second oldest profession; it bears a very close resemblance to the first.—Ronald Reagan
I don't approve of political jokes; I have seen too many of them get elected.—Jon Stewart
Foreign aid is taking money from the poor people of a rich country and giving it to the rich people of a poor country.—Ron Paul
A fool and his money are soon elected.—Will Rogers
How can we expect a politician to believe in the wisdom of the people when he knows it was the people who voted him in?—Bob Monkhouse
"Trickle down" has proven to be the economic equivalent of a golden shower.—Michael R. Burch

The stand-up comedian's one-liner is a form of epigram. Here are current examples of the genre, taken from the 2015-2016 American presidential campaign trail:

Donald Trump is "the kind of person who goes to the Super Bowl and thinks the people in the huddle are talking about him."―Eric Schneiderman
Teddy Roosevelt advised speaking softly and carrying a big stick; Donald Trump prefers to speak loudly and carry a big shtick.—Michael R. Burch
Donald Trump showed his birth certificate to reporters. Who cares about his birth certificate? I want to know if that thing on his head has had its vaccinations.―Craig Ferguson

The Best Donald Trump Jokes, Tweets and Quotations

2016 Republican First Presidential Debate: Winners, Losers and Impressions

Is there a Republican War on Women?

More examples of political epigrams ...

In politics never retreat, never retract, never admit a mistake.—Napoleon Bonaparte
If you believe the doctors, nothing is wholesome; if you believe the theologians, nothing is innocent; if you believe the military, nothing is safe.—Lord Salisbury
Bigotry is the sacred disease.—Heraclitus
We may have all come in on different ships, but we're all in the same boat now.—Martin Luther King, Jr.
If you can't be a good example, you'll just have to be a horrible warning.—Catherine the Great
The future ain't what it used to be.—Yogi Berra
We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.—Albert Einstein
I don't know about World War III, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.—Albert Einstein
Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind.—John F. Kennedy
What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?—Mohandas Gandhi

The Tweet is a popular new form of epigram. Here's my favorite political Tweet to date:

The Capitol looks beautiful and I am honored to be at work tonight.—Gabrielle Giffords

Gabrielle Giffords is the Arizona congresswoman who was shot and nearly killed. While so many other American politicians rage and imagine vain things, I find her words wonderfully touching and encouraging. Reading her highly poetic Tweet, I can actually see our nation's Capitol lit up at night, shining like a beacon, and feel her sincerity. How many senators and congressmen are humble enough to feel honored to work for their country, I wonder? In any case, I'm glad to have Gabby back, and to know that she's not only recovering from her injuries, but wants to help her country recover from its own deep-seated (albeit self-inflicted) wounds. I only hope that other Americans will exhibit some of her grace under fire. After all, if she pulled through her harrowing ordeal, so can we as a nation, if only we emulate her courage and resolve. And as I write this, I am reminded of her favorite epigram, which appears on her Facebook page:

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds.—Abraham Lincoln

Continuing in the same rich vein, here are more of the very best political epigrams ...

The ballot is stronger than the bullet.—Abraham Lincoln

If we are to have real peace in the world,
we shall have to begin with the children.
―Mohandas Gandhi

It's not the size of the dog in the fight that counts, it's the size of the fight in the dog.—Dwight D. Eisenhower

I do not believe in a fate that will fall on us no matter what we do. I do believe in a fate that will fall on us if we do nothing.—Ronald Reagan

Religion and politics are hopelessly intertwined, especially in the United States. Here's an epigram of my own, called "Saving Graces":

Life’s saving graces are love, pleasure, laughter ...
wisdom, it seems, is for the Hereafter.
—Michael R. Burch

My epigram is dedicated to conservative Christians of the "Religious Right" who claim they'll inherit heaven at the expense of everyone else. (If you question the idea that Einstein and Gandhi will go to "hell," please read Why "hell" is vanishing from the Bible.)

As an Israeli, I have come to understand:
there is no way to love Israel and reject a two-state peace,
no way to love Israel and reject Palestine.
—Yael Dayan, daughter of Moshe Dayan, Israel's most famous general

Shake off all fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.—Thomas Jefferson

The rank is but the guinea’s stamp; the man’s the gowd [gold] for a’ [all] that!—Robert Burns

Epigrams like the one above helped fuel the American and French revolutions; Burns was saying that commoners had the same "mettle" and worth as royals and lords.

Sometimes epigrams can tell a story:

I came, I saw, I conquered.—Julius Caesar
I have not come to praise Caesar, but to bury him.—Brutus
Et tu, Bruté?—Julius Caesar [You too, Brutus?]

Sometimes we can know a man rather intimately through his most concise sayings:

There is nothing impossible to him who will try.—Alexander the Great
Heaven cannot brook two suns, nor earth two masters.—Alexander the Great
A tomb now suffices him for whom the whole world was not sufficient.—Alexander the Great
To the strongest!—Alexander the Great [when asked who should succeed him]

If you want to understand how fascists think, consider the words of one who spoke honestly about himself:

A Constitution should be short and obscure.—Napoleon Bonaparte
History is a set of lies agreed upon.—Napoleon Bonaparte
A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon.—Napoleon Bonaparte
A man will fight harder for his interests than for his rights.—Napoleon Bonaparte  
Men are more easily governed through their vices than through their virtues.—Napoleon Bonaparte
Men are moved by two levers only: fear and self interest.—Napoleon Bonaparte
A revolution is an idea which has found its bayonets.—Napoleon Bonaparte
A throne is only a bench covered with velvet.—Napoleon Bonaparte
I can no longer obey; I have tasted command, and I cannot give it up.—Napoleon Bonaparte
I love power ... as a musician loves his violin, to draw out its sounds and chords and harmonies.—Napoleon Bonaparte
If you wish to be a success in the world, promise everything, deliver nothing.—Napoleon Bonaparte
In politics stupidity is not a handicap.—Napoleon Bonaparte
In politics never retreat, never retract, never admit a mistake.—Napoleon Bonaparte
Power is my mistress. I have worked too hard at her conquest to allow anyone to take her away from me.—Napoleon Bonaparte
Religion is excellent stuff for keeping the common people quiet.—Napoleon Bonaparte
It is the cause, not the death, that makes the martyr.—Napoleon Bonaparte

There are are "dead serious" epigrams, called epitaphs. These are the inscriptions that appear on headstones. Here's one of mine called "Epitaph for a Palestinian Child":

I lived as best I could, and then I died.
Be careful where you step: the grave is wide.
—Michael R. Burch

Political epigrams can be equally scathing, whether aimed at liberals, conservatives or politicians in general:

I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat.—Will Rogers
A conservative is a man who believes that nothing should be done for the first time.—Alfred E. Wiggam
A conservative is a man who is too cowardly to fight and too fat to run.—Elbert Hubbard
A conservative is one who admires radicals centuries after they're dead.—Leo Rosten
A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned how to walk forward.—Franklin D. Roosevelt
Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.—Albert Einstein
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it, misdiagnosing it, and then misapplying the wrong remedies.—Groucho Marx
Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion.—Henry David Thoreau
As a snow-drift is formed where there is a lull in the wind, so, one would say, where there is a lull of truth, an institution springs up.—Henry David Thoreau

Sometimes an epigram is the salvo a brilliant, battle-savvy epigrammatist launches against human ignorance, intolerance, cruelty and insanity:

There are many humorous things in the world; among them, the white man's notion that he is less savage than the other savages.—Mark Twain

To determine the truth of Twain's remark, just inquire with any black American slave, or any Native American who walked the Trail of Tears, or any Palestinian who's been herded inside the walled ghetto of Gaza and had the gates slammed shut in his face. None of them will praise the white man's self-avowed "democratic ideals" or his "Judeo-Christian ethics." If you don't agree with Twain, please be assured that he is the keener  observer and savvier student of history and human nature. But if you read his epigrams, you may quickly close the gap! And I believe Einstein was in general agreement with Twain when he said:

I don't know what weapons will be used in World War III, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.—Albert Einstein

One has only to be able to put two and two together, to understand why Twain's remark relates to Einstein's. Just consider the millions of Palestinians who suffer inside squalid refugee camps and walled ghettoes, thanks to the "democracies" of the USA, Great Britain and Israel, while 1.5 billion Muslims see and share their agony. If we don't understand why denying other people freedom, human rights and dignity will cause us to end up fighting with sticks and stones after a nuclear Armageddon . . . well, we're just not as observant or wise as Twain and Einstein. But we certainly can't say they didn't warn us, as did an American president who was a master of the chiasmus, another form of epigram:

Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind.—John F. Kennedy, Jr.

The history of such epigrams goes "way back" in time. In the 6th century B.C. the legendarily rich King Croesus of Lydia said:

In peace sons bury their fathers, but in war fathers bury their sons.—Croesus

When we consider the expensive, bloody follies of the U.S. government in the Middle East, we can only wish our politicians had heeded Will Rogers:

If there is one thing that we do worse than any other nation, it is try and manage somebody else's affairs.― Will Rogers

And a great French essayist can explain why American freedoms seem to be vanishing:

The clatter of arms drowns out the voice of law.—Michel de Montaigne

The great epigrammatists often arise from the ranks of the disaffected and oppressed. Oscar Wilde, the greatest epigrammatist of them all, served time in Reading Goal for "indecency" (he had the temerity to be flamboyantly gay). Twain wrote volumes exposing and expounding on the massive illogic of orthodox Christianity (he had the temerity to be a heretic, but had to hold up the publication of his anti-Christian opus Letters from the Earth for fifty years after his death, in order to protect his family from fire-breathing Christian fundamentalists). Einstein produced many of his epigrams against the backdrop of Nazi Germany (he had the temerity to be a brilliant Jew).  Today many of our best epigrammatists are women who combine sharp minds with even sharper tongues:

If you want anything said, ask a man. If you want anything done, ask a woman.—Margaret Thatcher
When women are depressed they either eat or go shopping. Men invade another country.—Elayne Boosler

Female politicians like Margaret Thatcher may be somewhat at odds (or loose ends) with female comedians like Elayne Boosler, since Thatcher wasn't above an invasion herself (of the Falkland Islands). But Boosler hammers the human funnybone nonetheless. She doesn't have to be perfect, just witty and succinct enough to make us blink, then think.

The Oscar Goes to Wilde: Political Epigrams by the Divine Oscar Wilde

Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.
Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes them to live.
Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people we personally dislike.
Scandal is gossip made tedious by morality.
Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess.
Self-denial is the shining sore on the leprous body of Christianity.
Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it is always from the noblest motives.
Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.
Always forgive your enemies: nothing annoys them so much.
America is the only country that went from barbarism to decencies without civilization in between.
To disagree with three-fourths of the British public is one of the first requisites of sanity.
Work is the curse of the drinking classes.
Do not speak ill of society . . . only people who can't get in do that.
Arguments are extremely vulgar, for everyone in good society holds exactly the same opinion.
A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.

The Twain Well Met: Political Epigrams by Mark Twain

Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul.
Truth is mighty and will prevail. There is nothing wrong with this, except that it ain't so.
Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.
Facts are stubborn; statistics are more pliable.
It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you do know that ain't so.
Don't tell fish stories where the people know you; but particularly, don't tell them where they know the fish.
Principles have no real force except when one is well-fed.
Prosperity is the best protector of principle.
Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.
There is probably no distinctly American criminal class, except Congress.
Reader, suppose you were an idiot. Now suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.
What is the difference between a taxidermist and a tax collector? The taxidermist takes only your skin.
In our country we have three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them.

The Wit and Wisdom of Ronald Wilson Reagan

I do not believe in a fate that will fall on us no matter what we do. I do believe in a fate that will fall on us if we do nothing.
There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn't mind who gets the credit.
I know it's hard when you're up to your armpits in alligators to remember you came here to drain the swamp.
There are simple answers to the nation's problems, but not easy ones.
While I take inspiration from the past, like most Americans, I live for the future.
We don't have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven't taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much.
I've always stated that the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth is a government program.
I have wondered at times what the Ten Commandments would have looked like if Moses had run them through Congress.
The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, "I'm from the government and I'm here to help."
A friend of mine was asked to a costume ball a short time ago. He slapped some egg on his face and went as a liberal economist.
Recession is when your neighbor loses his job. Depression is when you lose yours. Recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his.
Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.
Detente — isn't that what a farmer has with his turkey — until Thanksgiving?
Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards, if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book.
I am not worried about the deficit. It is big enough to take care of itself.
The difference between them and us is that we want to check government spending and they want to spend government checks.
Government's view of the economy: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. If it stops moving, subsidize it.
How do you tell a Communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin.

Humor Equals Wit Times Genius Squared: The Political Epigrams of Albert Einstein

Whoever set himself up as a judge of Truth is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.
Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.
We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.
Only two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the former.
Our technology has exceeded our humanity.
I don't know about World War III, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.
The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.
Information is not knowledge.
Great spirits have often encountered violent opposition from weak minds.

Epigrams Reign: Michel de Montaigne

The clatter of arms drowns out the voice of law.
Nothing is so firmly believed as that which least is known.
Man cannot make a worm, yet he will make gods by the dozen.
Our religion is made to eradicate vices, instead it encourages them, covers them, and nurtures them.
Not being able to govern events, I govern myself.
No man is a hero to his own valet.
There is no conversation more boring than the one where everybody agrees.
There are some defeats more triumphant than victories.
The way of the world is to make laws, but follow custom.
The thing I fear most is fear.
Let us give Nature a chance; she knows her business better than we do.
He who is not very strong in memory should not meddle with lying.

The Church Gets the Burch Rod

There's no better tonic for other people's bad ideas, than to think for oneself.—Michael R. Burch

Life’s saving graces are love, pleasure, laughter ...
wisdom, it seems, is for the Hereafter.
—Michael R. Burch

If God has the cattle on a thousand hills, why does he need my tithes?—Michael R. Burch

If God
is good
half the Bible
is libel.
—Michael R. Burch

Hell hath no fury like a frustrated fundamentalist whose God condemned him to "hell" for having "impure thoughts."—Michael R. Burch

I've got Jesus's name on a wallet insert
and "Hell is for Queers" on the back of my shirt
and I uphold the Law,
for grace has a flaw:
the Church must have someone to drag through the dirt.
—Michael R. Burch

I lived as best I could, and then I died.
Be careful where you step: the grave is wide.
—Michael R. Burch

The Death of Class

I am his Highness' dog at Kew;
Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?
—Alexander Pope

Errors and Terrors

Treason doth never prosper; what's the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.
—Sir John Harrington

The Errors of a Wise Man make your Rule
Rather than the Perfections of a Fool.
—William Blake

Bigotry is the sacred disease.—Heraclitus

Type Cast

a politician is an arse upon
which everyone has sat except a man
—e. e. cummings

This Humanist whom no beliefs constrained
Grew so broad-minded he was scatter-brained.
—J. V. Cunningham

A Smidgen of Religion

God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.—Voltaire

Some people attend church three times in their lives: when they're hatched, when they're matched, and when they're dispatched.—Unknown

Believe nothing because it is written in books.
Believe nothing because wise men say it is so.
Believe nothing because it is religious doctrine.
Believe it only because you yourself know it to be true.
—Buddha

The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because generally they are the same people.—G. K. Chesterton

Funny Money

It is easy when we are in prosperity to give advice to the afflicted.―Aeschylus
Money is the wise man's religion.—Euripides
When it is a question of money, everybody is of the same religion.—Voltaire
The shortest road to wealth lies in the contempt of wealth.—Seneca
If you'd know the power of money, go and borrow some.—Ben Franklin
I found out that I was a Christian for revenue only and I could not bear the thought of that, it was so ignoble.—Mark Twain

Aeschylus

In war, truth is the first casualty.
Death is better, a milder fate than tyranny.
I know how men in exile feed on dreams of hope.
It is easy when we are in prosperity to give advice to the afflicted.
Destiny waits alike for the free man as well as for him enslaved by another's might.
It is in the character of very few men to honor without envy a friend who has prospered.

Where there's a Will there's a Way: the Epigrams of Will Rogers

An economist's guess is liable to be as good as anybody else's.
Make crime pay. Become a lawyer.
A fool and his money are soon elected.
Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for.
Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice doggie" until you can find a rock.
Communism to me is one-third practice and two-thirds explanation.
I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat.
I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.
The U.S. Senate opens with a prayer and closes with an investigation.
Congress in session is like when the baby gets hold of a hammer.
You can't say civilization don't advance...in every war they kill you in a new way.
Being a hero is about the shortest-lived profession on earth.
Buy land. They ain't making any more of the stuff.
Chaotic action is preferable to orderly inaction.
Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.
Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects.
Everything is changing. People are taking comedians seriously and politicians as a joke.
Everything is funny, as long as it's happening to somebody else.
Get someone else to blow your horn and the sound will carry twice as far.
Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.
I bet after seeing us, George Washington would sue us for calling him "father."
It isn't what we don't know that gives us trouble, it's what we know that ain't so.
Lettin' the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier 'n puttin' it back in.
Liberty doesn't work as well in practice as it does in speeches.
Our constitution protects aliens, drunks and U.S. Senators.
People are getting smarter nowadays; they're letting lawyers, not their conscience, be their guide.
People who fly into a rage always make a bad landing.
People's minds are changed through observation and not through argument.
Politics has become so expensive that it takes a lot of money even to be defeated.
Prohibition is better than no liquor at all.
The income tax has made liars out of more Americans than golf.
The only way you can beat the lawyers is to die with nothing.
The United States never lost a war or won a conference.
There is no more independence in politics than there is in jail.
There is nothing so stupid as the educated man if you get him off his subject.
There ought to be one day, just one, when there is open season on senators.
Things in our country run in spite of government, not by aid of it.
We don't seem to be able to check crime, so why not legalize it and then tax it out of business?
We will never have true civilization until we have learned to recognize the rights of others.
What the country needs is dirtier fingernails and cleaner minds.
When ignorance gets started it knows no bounds.
You've got to go out on a limb sometimes because that's where the fruit is.
Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we rushed through life trying to save.
If there's one thing we do worse than any other nation, it's managing somebody else's affairs.
The only difference between death and taxes is that death doesn't get worse every time Congress meets.
I have a scheme for stopping war: no nation can enter a war till it's paid for the last one.
Take diplomacy out of war, and the thing would fall flat in a week.
Anything important is never left to the vote of the people. We only get to vote on some man; we never get to vote on what he is to do.
Alexander Hamilton started the U.S. Treasury with nothing, and that was the closest our country has ever been to being even.

Woody Allen

Eighty percent of success is showing up.
I can't listen to Wagner. I start getting the urge to conquer Poland.
Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons.
To you I'm an atheist; to God, I'm the Loyal Opposition.
The lion and the lamb shall lie down together but the lamb won't get much sleep.
If it turns out that there is a God, I don't think that he's evil. The worst you can say about him is that basically he's an underachiever.

Jonathan Swift

Government without the consent of the governed is the very definition of slavery.
I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed.
Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.
Men are happy to be laughed at for their humor, but not for their folly.
Nothing is so hard for those who abound in riches as to conceive how others can be in want.
Politics, as the word is commonly understood, are nothing but corruptions.
Poor nations are hungry, and rich nations are proud; and pride and hunger will ever be at variance.
Power is no blessing in itself, except when it is used to protect the innocent.
We have enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.
When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.
Where I am not understood, it shall be concluded that something very useful and profound is couched underneath.

Martial Law: the Epigrams of Marcus Valerius Martial

There is no glory in outstripping donkeys.
Conceal a flaw, and the world will imagine the worst.
Fortune gives too much to many, enough to none.
Gifts are hooks.
To the ashes of the dead glory comes too late.
Lawyers are men who hire out their words and anger.

Douglas Adams

Anyone capable of getting made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.
Nothing travels faster than the speed of light with the possible exception of bad news.

John Adams

You will never be alone with a poet in your pocket.
In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress.

Nota Bene: the Notable Epigrams of Ben Franklin

Little strokes fell great oaks.
Plough deep while sluggards sleep.
Vessels large may venture more, but little boats should keep near shore.
There never was a good war nor a bad peace.
A man between two lawyers is like a fish between two cats.
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.
Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other.
He that goes a-borrowing goes a-sorrowing.
He that lives upon hope will die fasting.
He who multiplies riches multiplies cares.
Hide not your talents. They for use were made. What's a sundial in the shade?
If you would persuade, you must appeal to interest rather than intellect.
Necessity never made a good bargain.
Never confuse motion with action.
Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.
Well done is better than well said.
Whatever is begun in anger ends in shame.
Where sense is wanting, everything is wanting.
We must indeed all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Immersed in Emerson: the Epigrammatic Wisdom of Ralph Waldo Emerson

To be great is to be misunderstood.
For nonconformity the world whips you with its displeasure.
If you would lift me you must be on higher ground.
We are taught by great actions that the universe is the property of every individual in it.
Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.
Men live on the brink of mysteries and harmonies into which they can never enter, and with their hand on the doorlatch they die outside.

Miscellanea

Quoting one is plagiarism; quoting many is research.—Unknown
Space is a dangerous place . . . especially if it's between your ears!—Unknown
The man who can't make mistakes, can't make anything.—Abraham Lincoln
Success comes in cans, not can't s.—Unknown
The tragedy of life is not so much what men suffer but rather what they miss.—Thomas Carlyle
When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.—Franklin D. Roosevelt
The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.—Franklin D. Roosevelt
A thousand words will not leave so deep an impression as one deed.—Henrik Ibsen
Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.—Rudyard Kipling
I may disagree with what you say, but I shall defend to the death your right to say it.—Voltaire
The hands that help are better far than the lips that pray.—Robert G. Ingersoll
There is none so blind as they that won't see.—Jonathan Swift
If I have seen a little farther than others, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants.—Sir Isaac Newton

Related pages: Epigrams in Literature and Poetry, Best Political Epigrams, Is there a Republican War on Women?

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