The saying “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty” is often used in commentary about the need to continually guard against efforts by the government or political pressure groups to…
Category: Historical quotes
“The business of America is business” – a famously unfair misquote…
When President Warren G. Harding died from a heart-related problem in 1923, Vice President Calvin Coolidge became the 30th President of the United States. The following year, with his popularity…
“Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition!”
On December 7, 1941 — which President Franklin D. Roosevelt would memorably name “a date which will live in infamy” on the following day — hundreds of Japanese warplanes made a…
“The Silent Majority” — from Nixon to Futurama
On November 3, 1969, President Richard M. Nixon (1913–1994) made a televised address to the nation about the war in Vietnam that popularized one of the most famous political phrases of the 20th century: “the silent majority.”
“Too cheap to meter” – the infamous nuclear power phrase…
In the annals of the long, still-ongoing debate over nuclear power, the most infamous words are undoubtedly “too cheap to meter.” The origin of this phrase is a speech given…
Mitt Romney’s infamous “47 percent” quote
On May 17, 2012, Republican presidential candidate, Senator Mitt Romney (R-Utah), said something that was later cited as one of the factors that caused him to lose the election…
“The shot heard round the world”
The famous phrase “The shot heard round the world” was coined by American essayist, lecturer and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) in 1837. It’s the last line in the first…
“Power without responsibility – the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages.”
In the decades before World War II, Stanley Baldwin was one of the most powerful politicians in the United Kingdom. He was the leader of Britain’s Conservative Party from 1923…