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.

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

You have all the characteristics of a popular politician: a horrible voice, bad breeding, and a vulgar manner.

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

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.

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

Envy is the basis of democracy.

Television has made dictatorship impossible, but democracy unbearable.

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

You should never have your best trousers on when you go out to fight for freedom and truth.

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

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