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

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.

An appeal to the reason of the people has never been known to fail in the long run.

Envy is the basis of democracy.

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

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

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

The most hateful torment for men is to have knowledge of everything but power over nothing.

The affairs of the world are no more than so much trickery, and a man who toils for money or honor or whatever else in deference to the wishes of others, rather than because his own desire or needs lead him to do so, will always be a fool.

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

Television has made dictatorship impossible, but democracy unbearable.

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.

Let him who desires peace prepare for war.