The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

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

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

A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard.

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.

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

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

The Revolution is made by man, but man must forge his revolutionary spirit from day to day.

I am invariably of the politics of the people at whose table I sit, or beneath whose roof I sleep.

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

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

On the loftiest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own rump.

I’m president of the United States, and I’m not going to eat any more broccoli!