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

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.

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.

He may be a patriot for Austria, but the question is whether he is a patriot for me.

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

What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him your celebration is a sham.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

There is no method by which men can be both free and equal.

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.