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

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

The Revolution is made by man, but man must forge his revolutionary spirit from day to day.

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

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.

You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.

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.

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.

An appeal to the reason of the people has never been known to fail in the long run.

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

Why has the government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.

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.