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

You should never have your best trousers on when you go out to fight for freedom and truth.

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

To be turned from one’s course by men’s opinions, by blame, and by misrepresentation shows a man unfit to hold office.

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

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Every communist must grasp the truth: “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”

You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.

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

The vice presidency isn’t worth a pitcher of warm piss.

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

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

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.