I say violence is necessary. It is as American as cherry pie.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Let him who desires peace prepare for war.

I shall be an autocrat: that’s my trade. And the good Lord will forgive me: that’s his.

Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.

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

People revere the Constitution yet know so little about it—and that goes for some of my fellow senators.

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