"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace in a continual state of alarm (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing them with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."

-H. L. Mencken

"Anyone that wants the presidency so much that he'll spend two years organizing and campaigning for it is not to be trusted with the office."

-David Broder

"One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors."

-Plato

"Power always has to be kept in check; power exercised in secret, especially under the cloak of national security, is doubly dangerous."

-William Proxmire

"I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually."

-James Baldwin

Notes of a Native Son