Wherever there is abuse there is also corruption. Politics, philosophy, theology, science, industry, any field with the potential to affect the well-being of others can be destroyed by abuse and saved by good will.
In politics, reality and appearance are of equal importance. You cannot attend to one and neglect the other. A man must determine both what he is, and what others believe him to be.
Vampires, fey folk, werewolves, Shadowhunters, and demons - these things made sense to Magnus. But the mundane world - it seemed to have no pattern, no form. Their quicksilver politics. Their short lives...
What, then, is the government? An intermediary body established between the subjects and the sovereign for their mutual communication, a body charged with the execution of the laws and the maintenance of freedom, both civil and political.
Display politeness and frankness always both in action and conversation. Don’t keep engaging in useless arguments. It scares your dreams away. Talk sensibly.
Because widespread participation is so central to popular sovereignty, we can say that the less political participation there is in a society, the weaker the democracy.
The habit of considering a man’s religious, moral and political opinions before appointing him to a post or giving him a job is the modern form of persecution.
Innocence was gone from all our acts. Our habitual state of rebellion became a serious political crime.
Dwarf mothers didn’t handicap their young by teaching them to be polite. My neighbors were as short on manners as they were on stature.
[C]hildren were a much more difficult audience than adults because no on had yet had a chance to teach them that it was better to be polite than honest.
I often think about a life of crime. But alas, politics isn’t for me.
Call a jack a jack. Call a spade a spade. But always call a whore a lady. Their lives are hard enough, and it never hurts to be polite.
Democracy should always be viewed with a philosophical perspective rather than a political one, because after all democracy was born to a philosopher and murdered by a politician.
In politics, the pen is at its heaviest because it is weighed down by the collective responsibility it holds towards its people and their future in the eyes of the world.
In insisting that personal habit and political action be one and the same, absolutist moralizing limits the possibilities of both.
From a political point of view, there is but one principle, the sovereignty of man over himself. This sovereignty of myself over myself is called Liberty
Life, faculties, production-in other words, individuality, liberty, property-this is man. And in spite of the cunning of artful political leaders, these three gifts from God precede all human legislation, and are superior to it.
In her secret soul, however, she decided that politics were as bad as mathematics, and that the mission of politicians seemed to be calling each other names…
Religion can't separate us, politics can't divide us, wealth can't classify us. We're all one! We're children of LOVE!
It is not always the same thing to be a good man and a good citizen.
Patriarchy, reformed or unreformed, is patriarchy still: its worst abuses purged or foresworn, it might actually be more stable and secure than before.
