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

Every country has the government it deserves.

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

There is no method by which men can be both free and equal.

I am no courtesan, nor moderator, nor tribune, nor defender of the people: I am myself the people.

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

Let him who desires peace prepare for war.

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

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

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

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

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

You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.