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.

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

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

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

Let him who desires peace prepare for war.

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

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

A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard.

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

Natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense—nonsense upon stilts.

Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.

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

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