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

Every country has the government it deserves.

It is impossible to tell which of the two dispositions we find in men is more harmful in a republic, that which seeks to maintain an established position or that which has none but seeks to acquire it.

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

My people and I have come to an agreement that satisfies us both. They are to say what they please, and I am to do what I please.

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

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

Politics is the art of the possible.

To be turned from one’s course by men’s opinions, by blame, and by misrepresentation shows a man unfit to hold office.

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

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

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

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