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

The first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull.

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.

Envy is the basis of democracy.

All the ills of democracy can be cured by more democracy.

Politics, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.

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

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

If you must take care that your opinions do not differ in the least from those of the person with whom you are talking, you might just as well be alone.

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

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.

No free man shall be taken or imprisoned or dispossessed or outlawed or exiled, or in any way destroyed, nor will we go upon him, nor will we send against him except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.

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.