The affairs of the world are no more than so much trickery, and a man who toils for money or honor or whatever else in deference to the wishes of others, rather than because his own desire or needs lead him to do so, will always be a fool.

There is nothing more tyrannical than a strong popular feeling among a democratic people.

I work for a government I despise for ends I think criminal.

What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him your celebration is a sham.

Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.

Whether for good or evil, it is sadly inevitable that all political leadership requires the artifices of theatrical illusion. In the politics of a democracy, the shortest distance between two points is often a crooked line.

On the loftiest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own rump.

I shall be an autocrat: that’s my trade. And the good Lord will forgive me: that’s his.

O citizens, first acquire wealth; you can practice virtue afterward.

He may be a patriot for Austria, but the question is whether he is a patriot for me.

If you must take care that your opinions do not differ in the least from those of the person with whom you are talking, you might just as well be alone.

Politics, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.

Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.