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people quotes

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“The people, and the people alone, are the motive force in the making of world history.” Mao Zedong, Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung
“There is no art which one government sooner learns of another, than that of draining money from the pockets of the people.” Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations
“If you want to govern the people, you must place yourself below them. If you want to lead the people, you must learn how to follow them.” Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching
“But when he has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or treaty, and there is nothing to fear from them, then he is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader.” Plato, The Republic
“Weapons are an important factor in war, but not the decisive factor; it is people, not things, that are decisive. The contest of strength is not only a contest of military and economic power, but also a contest of human power and morale. Military...” Mao Zedong, Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung
“The atom bomb is a paper tiger which the U.S. reactionaries use to scare people. It looks terrible, but in fact it isn't. Of course, the atom bomb is a weapon of mass slaughter, but the outcome of a war is decided by the people, not by one or two...” Mao Zedong, Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung
“Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition; and where all the superior ranks of people were secured from it, the inferior ranks could not be much exposed to it.” Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations
“Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people.” Charlie Chaplin, My Autobiography
“It is no use trying to sum people up.” Virginia Woolf, Jacob's Room
“Why, because an author has more rights than ordinary people, as everybody knows. People will stand much more from him.” Albert Camus, The Plague
“There ain’t no sin and there ain’t no virtue. There’s just stuff people do.” John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
“Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves therefore are its only safe depositories.” Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia
“Wealth is the means—and people are the ends.” John F. Kennedy, State of the Union Address
“Why do you necessarily have to be wrong just because a few million people think you are?” Frank Zappa, The Real Frank Zappa Book
“Dad always told me that you can judge people by the way they treat waiters and assistants.” John Green, The Fault in Our Stars
“Let your evinced desires be for what is good, and the people will be good.” Confucius, Analects
“It is the manners and spirit of a people which preserve a republic in vigour.” Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia
“The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished; and it would have done somewhat more, if the government had not sometimes got in its way.” Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience
“What is important for a leader is that which makes him a leader. It is the needs of his people.” Frank Herbert, Dune
“As a general rule, people, even the wicked, are much more naïve and simple-hearted than we suppose. And we ourselves are, too.” Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
“I stand here before you not as a prophet but as a humble servant of you, the people.” Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
“The government itself, which is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it.” Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience
“Every tax ought to be so contrived, as both to take out and to keep out of the pockets of the people as little as possible, over and above what it brings into the public treasury of the state.” Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations
“Besides this, one cannot by fair dealing, and without injury to others, satisfy the nobles, but you can satisfy the people, for their object is more righteous than that of the nobles, the latter wishing to oppress, while the former only desire...” Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince
“The common people pray for rain, healthy children, and a summer that never ends . . . It is no matter to them if the high lords play their game of thrones, so long as they are left in peace.” George R. R. Martin, A Game of Thrones
“Through me the way is to the city dolent; Through me the way is to eternal dole; Through me the way among the people lost.” Dante Alighieri, Divine Comedy
“Let us show that, if the people abandon the republicans, the republicans do not abandon the people.” Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
“In the United States each separate journal exercises but little authority, but the power of the periodical press is only second to that of the people.” Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America
“She belonged to that one of the two divisions of the human race in which the untiring curiosity which the other half feels about the people whom it does not know is replaced by an unfailing interest in the people whom it does.” Marcel Proust, Swann's Way
“There are so many people. It is easy to forget how full the world is of people, full to bursting, and each of them imaginable and consistently misimagined.” John Green, Paper Towns
“So many people enter and leave your life! Hundreds of thousands of people! You have to keep the door open so they can come in! But it also means you have to let them go!” Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
“Machiavelli . . . He professed to teach kings; but it was the people he really taught.” Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract
“People. You must love people. Men are admirable. I want to vomit—and suddenly, there it is: the Nausea.” Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea
“What is the city but the people?” William Shakespeare, Coriolanus
“People would be surprised if they knew how much in this world was due to prayers.” Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
“Maybe ever’body in the whole damn world is scared of each other.” John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men
“She would not say of any one in the world now that they were this or were that.” Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway
“People are like lice—they get under your skin and bury themselves there. You scratch and scratch until the blood comes, but you can’t get permanently deloused.” Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer
“An habitation giddy and unsure hath he that buildeth on the vulgar heart.” William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part 2
“For, although one may be very strong in armed forces, yet in entering a province one has always need of the goodwill of the natives.” Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince
“People are different when you can smell them and see them up close, you know?” John Green, Paper Towns

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government leadership power war force peace tax republic authority money politics desire life freedom fear loneliness science good humility writing

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Henry David Thoreau (2)
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Niccolò Machiavelli (2)
John F. Kennedy (1)
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Plato (1)
George R. R. Martin (1)
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Confucius (1)
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Related sources

The Wealth of Nations (3)
Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung (3)
Civil Disobedience (2)
The Prince (2)
Notes on the State of Virginia (2)
Paper Towns (2)
Democracy in America (1)
Nausea (1)
Long Walk to Freedom (1)
Tao Te Ching (1)
State of the Union Address (1)
The Brothers Karamazov (1)
Analects (1)
A Game of Thrones (1)
The Plague (1)
My Autobiography (1)
The Fault in Our Stars (1)
The Social Contract (1)
Tropic of Cancer (1)
The Real Frank Zappa Book (1)