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

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

What experience and history teach is this—that nations and governments have never learned anything from history or acted upon any lessons they might have drawn from it.

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

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.

Politics is the art of the possible.

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

In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in folly.

The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure it is right.

Every country has the government it deserves.

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.

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.

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