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.

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.

Every country has the government it deserves.

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.

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.

The vice presidency isn’t worth a pitcher of warm piss.

You have all the characteristics of a popular politician: a horrible voice, bad breeding, and a vulgar manner.

Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.

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

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

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.

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