Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

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

What experience and history teach is this—that nations and governments have never learned anything from history or acted upon any lessons they might have drawn from it.

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

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.

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

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

The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all.

Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.

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

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

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

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