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.

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

You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.

Television has made dictatorship impossible, but democracy unbearable.

I am invariably of the politics of the people at whose table I sit, or beneath whose roof I sleep.

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.

Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.

It is a certain sign of a wise government and proceeding, when it can hold men’s hearts by hopes, when it cannot by satisfaction.

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

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.

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

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