If you must take care that your opinions do not differ in the least from those of the person with whom you are talking, you might just as well be alone.

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.

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

Politics is the art of the possible.

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.

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.

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

Television has made dictatorship impossible, but democracy unbearable.

There is nothing more tyrannical than a strong popular feeling among a democratic people.

Envy is the basis of democracy.

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

Let him who desires peace prepare for war.

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