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

I am no courtesan, nor moderator, nor tribune, nor defender of the people: I am myself the people.

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.

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

I’m president of the United States, and I’m not going to eat any more broccoli!

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

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.

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.

I am invariably of the politics of the people at whose table I sit, or beneath whose roof I sleep.

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.

It is a certain sign of a wise government and proceeding, when it can hold men’s hearts by hopes, when it cannot by satisfaction.

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

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