You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.

Let him who desires peace prepare for war.

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.

I say violence is necessary. It is as American as cherry pie.

An appeal to the reason of the people has never been known to fail in the long run.

In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in folly.

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

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

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

A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard.

Natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense—nonsense upon stilts.

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