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

It is impossible to tell which of the two dispositions we find in men is more harmful in a republic, that which seeks to maintain an established position or that which has none but seeks to acquire it.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.

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

Television has made dictatorship impossible, but democracy unbearable.