Quotes Library

March 28, 2025

A government is the only known vessel that leaks from the top.

James Reston (1909–1995), American journalist, The Portable Curmudgeon, Jon Winokur, ed. (New York: 1987), p.124

How frequently do you or would you leak? Drop a hint? Send something off in a brown paper envelope?

And good that governments do leak, else Reston (one of the most influential journalists of his day) would have had a lot fewer scoops to report.


More Quotes

October 20, 2025
Universal suffrage [i.e., votes for all adult men and women] is the government of a house by its nursery.
October 16, 2025
The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.
January 21, 2025
The quality of legislation passed to deal with a problem is inversely proportional to the volume of media clamor that brought it on.
Page 108 of 122