Anthony Trollope Quotes

Information that is gathered and managed in secret is a potent weapon – and the temptation to use it in political combat … can be irresistible.

How to get people to vote against their interests and to really think against their interests is very clever. It's the cleverest ruling class that I have ever come across in history. It's been two hundred years at it. It's superb.

The problem with politics isn't the money; it's the power.

Absolute power does not corrupt absolutely, absolute power attracts the corruptible.

The shortest way to change a radical into a conservative, a liberal into a tyrant, a man into a beast, is to give him power over his fellows.

Rulers who wished to subvert the public liberty, may have found an established Clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just Government instituted to secure & perpetuate it needs them not.

He is a weak ruler who needs religion to uphold his government; it is as if he would catch his people in a trap.

Remember that anybody who is clever enough to set you free is clever enough to enslave you.

We should forgive our enemies, but not before they are hanged

The devil knew what he did when he made men politic; he crossed himself by it.

The heights of popularity and patriotism are still the beaten road to power and tyranny; flattery to treachery; standing armies to arbitrary government; and the glory of God to the temporal interest of the clergy.

When we speak of power, we mean man's control over the minds and actions of other men. By political power we refer to the mutual relations of control among the holders of public authority and between the latter and the people at large.

[The American President] has to take all sorts of abuse from liars and demagogues.… The people can never understand why the President does not use his supposedly great power to make ’em behave. Well, all the President is, is a glorified public relations man who spends his time flattering, kissing and kicking people to get them to do what they are supposed to do anyway.

When an injustice happens, we want to be vindicated. People feel that if they forgive the person who hurt them, then they will continue to take advantage of them or not take responsibility for what they did wrong. If we're honest, we'll admit that we usually want the person who hurt us to pay for what they did. We can't get past this until we get the revelation that only God can pay us back. He is our Vindicator - He will heal and restore us if we will trust Him and forgive our enemies as He has told us to do.

What kind of tyrant punishes everyone just to get back at the few he's mad at? I mean, besides Chris Christie.

And when the Patrician was unhappy, he became very democratic. He found intricate and painful ways of spreading that unhappiness as far as possible.

It is a great mistake to suppose that bribery and corruption, although they may be very convenient for gratifying the ambition or the vanity of individuals, have any great effect upon the fortunes or the power of parties. And it is a great mistake to suppose that bribery and corruption are means by which power can either be ob-tained or retained.

Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man, and our politicians take advantage of this prejudice by pretending to be even more stupid than nature has made them.

Government has within it a tendency to abuse its powers.

There are, perhaps, few men who can for any length of time enjoy office and power without being more or less under the influence of feelings unfavorable to the faithful discharge of their political duties.

What better way for a ruling class to claim and hold power than to pose as the defenders of the nation.

Political organizations are formed to keep the powerful in power.

Power in the hands of the reformer is no less potentially corrupting than in the hands of the oppressor.

To try to blackmail a president into giving them some concessions on issues that have nothing to do with the budget.

I suppose people also have to be a little more careful or circumspect if they're going to leverage their celebrity to promote their political aims. The problem is that politics is about the accretion of power, and it's very difficult not to get giddy with power.