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

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

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

You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.

Politics is the art of the possible.

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

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.

People revere the Constitution yet know so little about it—and that goes for some of my fellow senators.

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

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

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

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