Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

There is nothing more tyrannical than a strong popular feeling among a democratic people.

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

Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.

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

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

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.

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

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

Why has the government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.

Politics is the art of the possible.

I work for a government I despise for ends I think criminal.

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