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

Written laws are like spiderwebs: they will catch, it is true, the weak and poor but would be torn in pieces by the rich and powerful.

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

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

Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made.

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

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul.

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.

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.

On the loftiest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own rump.

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

Envy is the basis of democracy.