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

I’m president of the United States, and I’m not going to eat any more broccoli!

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

Envy is the basis of democracy.

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.

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

What experience and history teach is this—that nations and governments have never learned anything from history or acted upon any lessons they might have drawn from it.

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

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.

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

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.

A real leader is somebody who can help us overcome the limitations of our own individual laziness and selfishness and weakness and fear and get us to do better, harder things than we can get ourselves to do on our own.

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.