The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

No free man shall be taken or imprisoned or dispossessed or outlawed or exiled, or in any way destroyed, nor will we go upon him, nor will we send against him except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.

I am no courtesan, nor moderator, nor tribune, nor defender of the people: I am myself the people.

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.

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

The U.S. presidency is a Tudor monarchy plus telephones.

The best of all rulers is but a shadowy presence to his subjects.