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

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

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.

Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.

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

Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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