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

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.

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.

What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him your celebration is a sham.

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

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

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

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

It is impossible to tell which of the two dispositions we find in men is more harmful in a republic, that which seeks to maintain an established position or that which has none but seeks to acquire it.

Politics is the art of the possible.

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