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

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.

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

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

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

Politics is the art of the possible.

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

A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard.

Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.

Every country has the government it deserves.

The first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull.

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.