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

Politics, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.

Written laws are like spiderwebs: they will catch, it is true, the weak and poor but would be torn in pieces by the rich and powerful.

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

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

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

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.

Every country has the government it deserves.

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.

Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.

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.

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

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