People revere the Constitution yet know so little about it—and that goes for some of my fellow senators.

It is a certain sign of a wise government and proceeding, when it can hold men’s hearts by hopes, when it cannot by satisfaction.

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.

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

No human life, not even the life of a hermit, is possible without a world which directly or indirectly testifies to the presence of other human beings.

Politics is the art of the possible.

The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure it is right.

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

Envy is the basis of democracy.

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

A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard.

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.

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