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

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

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

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

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

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

The most hateful torment for men is to have knowledge of everything but power over nothing.

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

Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.

Whether for good or evil, it is sadly inevitable that all political leadership requires the artifices of theatrical illusion. In the politics of a democracy, the shortest distance between two points is often a crooked line.

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

What experience and history teach is this—that nations and governments have never learned anything from history or acted upon any lessons they might have drawn from it.

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