Quotes Library

October 20, 2025

Universal suffrage [i.e., votes for all adult men and women] is the government of a house by its nursery.

Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898), German statesman, The Cynic’s Lexicon, Jonathon Green, ed. (London: 1986), p.28

How many people, still, deep down, believe this to be true? How many women?

That’s Otto, speaking like the dead white male aristocrat he is.


More Quotes

October 29, 2025
If you are involved in important affairs or seeking power, you must exaggerate your successes.
August 5, 2025
00:40
[On being prime minister] Sometimes the strain is awful, you have to resort to Jane Austen.
April 26, 2025
It’s better to debate a question without settling it than to settle a question without debating it.
Page 118 of 126