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.

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

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.

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.

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

Treaties, you see, are like girls and roses: they last while they last.

The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure it is right.

Every communist must grasp the truth: “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”

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

Do that which consists in taking no action, and order will prevail.

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

There is nothing more tyrannical than a strong popular feeling among a democratic people.