I work for a government I despise for ends I think criminal.

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

No free man shall be taken or imprisoned or dispossessed or outlawed or exiled, or in any way destroyed, nor will we go upon him, nor will we send against him except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.

Television has made dictatorship impossible, but democracy unbearable.

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

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

Politics is the art of the possible.

People revere the Constitution yet know so little about it—and that goes for some of my fellow senators.

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

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

I am no courtesan, nor moderator, nor tribune, nor defender of the people: I am myself the people.

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.

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