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 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.

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

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.

If you must take care that your opinions do not differ in the least from those of the person with whom you are talking, you might just as well be alone.

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

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

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

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

Do that which consists in taking no action, and order will prevail.

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

My people and I have come to an agreement that satisfies us both. They are to say what they please, and I am to do what I please.

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