Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

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

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.

Television has made dictatorship impossible, but democracy unbearable.

My people and I have come to an agreement that satisfies us both. They are to say what they please, and I am to do what I please.

No human life, not even the life of a hermit, is possible without a world which directly or indirectly testifies to the presence of other human beings.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.