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

Television has made dictatorship impossible, but democracy unbearable.

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

To be turned from one’s course by men’s opinions, by blame, and by misrepresentation shows a man unfit to hold office.

Treaties, you see, are like girls and roses: they last while they last.

You have all the characteristics of a popular politician: a horrible voice, bad breeding, and a vulgar manner.

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.

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

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

Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.

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

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.