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

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

Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.

A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

Every country has the government it deserves.

Treaties, you see, are like girls and roses: they last while they last.

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