Treaties, you see, are like girls and roses: they last while they last.

Written laws are like spiderwebs: they will catch, it is true, the weak and poor but would be torn in pieces by the rich and powerful.

The first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull.

Politics is the art of the possible.

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul.

There is no method by which men can be both free and equal.

I am no courtesan, nor moderator, nor tribune, nor defender of the people: I am myself the people.

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

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

Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.

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.

Envy is the basis of democracy.

To be turned from one’s course by men’s opinions, by blame, and by misrepresentation shows a man unfit to hold office.