In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in folly.

There is no method by which men can be both free and equal.

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

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.

A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard.

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

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

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

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.

Every country has the government it deserves.

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

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

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.