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

Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.

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

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

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

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.

You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.

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

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

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

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

Politics is the art of the possible.

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