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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

I say violence is necessary. It is as American as cherry pie.