It was not power that corrupted people, but fools who corrupted power.
Order without liberty and liberty without order are equally destructive.
The distinction between a manager and a leader is as broad as the distance between control and inspiration.
Fish begins to stink at the head.
In every well-governed state, wealth is a sacred thing; in democracies it is the only sacred thing.
Woman once made equal to man becomes his superior.
The chief duty of government is to keep the peace and stand out of the sunshine of the people.
A statesman shears the sheep. A politician skins them.
I believe managing is like holding a dove in your hand. If you hold it too tightly you kill it, but if you hold it too loosely, you lose it.
In Russia we only had two TV channels. Channel One was propaganda. Channel Two consisted of a KGB officer telling you: Turn back at once to Channel One.
The mystery of government is not how Washington works but how to make it stop.
Votes should be weighed not counted.
Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms.
A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way and shows the way.
An aristocracy in a republic is like a chicken whose head has been cut off: it may run about in a lively way, but in fact it is dead.
A statesman is a politician who places himself at the service of the nation. A politician is a statesman who places the nation at his service.
The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind him in other men the conviction and the will to carry on.
Good government could never be a substitute for government by the people themselves.
If the Government is big enough to give you everything you want, it is big enough to take away everything you have.
Democracy means government by discussion, but it is only effective if you can stop people talking.
After the government takes enough to balance the budget, the taxpayer has the job of budgeting the balance.
Most of the trouble in the world is caused by people wanting to be important.
Nature's laws are the invisible government of the earth.
A revolution is not the same as inviting people to dinner, or writing an essay, or painting a picture. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another.
Kill a man, and you are an assassin. Kill millions of men, and you are a conqueror. Kill everyone, and you are a god.
Every revolutionary ends as an oppressor or a heretic.
All modern revolutions have ended in a reinforcement of the State.
The empires of the future are the empires of the mind.
A politician is a man who understands government, and it takes a politician to run a government. A statesman is a politician who's been dead 10 or 15 years.
Tyranny is always better organised than freedom.
Democracy means government by the uneducated, while aristocracy means government by the badly educated.
What is a rebel? A man who says no.
How can you govern a country which has 246 varieties of cheese?
So long as men worship the Caesars and Napoleons, Caesars and Napoleons will duly arise and make them miserable.
Vote for the man who promises least; he'll be the least disappointing.
The tyrant dies and his rule is over; the martyr dies and his rule begins.
It is dangerous to be right in matters where established men are wrong.
Those who cast the Votes, they decide nothing. Those who count the votes, they decide everything.
The hardest thing to understand in the world is the income tax.
A king is history's slave.
It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.
When I am abroad, I always make it a rule never to criticize or attack the government of my own country. I make up for lost time when I come home.
Government is an association of men who do violence to the rest of us.
A bureaucracy always tends to become a pedantocracy.
Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.
Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.
A riot is the language of the unheard.
A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.
