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.

In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in folly.

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

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

The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all.

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

The best of all rulers is but a shadowy presence to his subjects.

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.

The more corrupt the republic, the more numerous the laws.

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

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.

Every country has the government it deserves.

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