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

Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.

Why has the government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.

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

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

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

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.

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.

The Revolution is made by man, but man must forge his revolutionary spirit from day to day.

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

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.

Politics is the art of the possible.

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