A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard.

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

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

It is a certain sign of a wise government and proceeding, when it can hold men’s hearts by hopes, when it cannot by satisfaction.

The best of all rulers is but a shadowy presence to his subjects.

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

The U.S. presidency is a Tudor monarchy plus telephones.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

I am invariably of the politics of the people at whose table I sit, or beneath whose roof I sleep.