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

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.

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.

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 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.

Television has made dictatorship impossible, but democracy unbearable.

Politics is the art of the possible.

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

My people and I have come to an agreement that satisfies us both. They are to say what they please, and I am to do what I please.

The vice presidency isn’t worth a pitcher of warm piss.

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

O citizens, first acquire wealth; you can practice virtue afterward.

A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard.