A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul.

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 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.

Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.

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.

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

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

Natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense—nonsense upon stilts.

Politics is the art of the possible.

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

Why has the government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.

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.

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