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

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.

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

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

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

The best of all rulers is but a shadowy presence to his subjects.

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

Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made.

All the ills of democracy can be cured by more democracy.

Television has made dictatorship impossible, but democracy unbearable.

Let him who desires peace prepare for war.

You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.

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