Politics is the art of the possible.

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

There is nothing more tyrannical than a strong popular feeling among a democratic people.

Let him who desires peace prepare for war.

It is a certain sign of a wise government and proceeding, when it can hold men’s hearts by hopes, when it cannot by satisfaction.

Why has the government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.

A real leader is somebody who can help us overcome the limitations of our own individual laziness and selfishness and weakness and fear and get us to do better, harder things than we can get ourselves to do on our own.

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

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

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

Television has made dictatorship impossible, but democracy unbearable.

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