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

You have all the characteristics of a popular politician: a horrible voice, bad breeding, and a vulgar manner.

You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.

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

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

The affairs of the world are no more than so much trickery, and a man who toils for money or honor or whatever else in deference to the wishes of others, rather than because his own desire or needs lead him to do so, will always be a fool.

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

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

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

I am invariably of the politics of the people at whose table I sit, or beneath whose roof I sleep.

Envy is the basis of democracy.

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

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