You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.

The more corrupt the republic, the more numerous the laws.

The first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull.

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.

O citizens, first acquire wealth; you can practice virtue afterward.

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

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

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

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

Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.

On the loftiest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own rump.

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.

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