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

Let him who desires peace prepare for war.

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul.

Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.

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

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

O citizens, first acquire wealth; you can practice virtue afterward.

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

Written laws are like spiderwebs: they will catch, it is true, the weak and poor but would be torn in pieces by the rich and powerful.

An appeal to the reason of the people has never been known to fail in the long run.

All the ills of democracy can be cured by more democracy.

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