Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made.

The U.S. presidency is a Tudor monarchy plus telephones.

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

Let him who desires peace prepare for war.

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

It is impossible to tell which of the two dispositions we find in men is more harmful in a republic, that which seeks to maintain an established position or that which has none but seeks to acquire it.

The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure it is right.

Envy is the basis of democracy.

I’m president of the United States, and I’m not going to eat any more broccoli!

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

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

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

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.