The more corrupt the republic, the more numerous the laws.

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

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

Every country has the government it deserves.

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

People revere the Constitution yet know so little about it—and that goes for some of my fellow senators.

Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.

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.

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

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul.

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

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

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