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.

What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him your celebration is a sham.

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.

Television has made dictatorship impossible, but democracy unbearable.

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

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

A real leader is somebody who can help us overcome the limitations of our own individual laziness and selfishness and weakness and fear and get us to do better, harder things than we can get ourselves to do on our own.

You have all the characteristics of a popular politician: a horrible voice, bad breeding, and a vulgar manner.

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

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

My people and I have come to an agreement that satisfies us both. They are to say what they please, and I am to do what I please.

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

Politics is the art of the possible.