Politics and Power

Some men change their party for the sake of their principles; others their principles for the sake of their party.

Any American who is prepared to run for president should automatically, by definition, be disqualified from ever doing so.

Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber.

There are many men of principle in both parties in America, but there is no party of principle.

Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.

As government expands, liberty contracts.

The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them.

The rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened.

Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves.

The only difference between Hitler and Bush is that Hitler was elected .

In politics, stupidity is not a handicap.

I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State... These two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death.

The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.

The poor object to being governed badly, while the rich object to being governed at all.

Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.

People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or before an election.

Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.

Never believe anything in politics until it has been officially denied .

The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are - the refuge of political and economic opportunist.

History suggests that capitalism is a necessary condition for political freedom .

It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.

The magician and the politician have much in common: they both have to draw our attention away from what they are really doing.

My choice early in life was either to be a piano-player in a whorehouse or a politician. And to tell the truth, there's hardly any difference.

The most successful politician is he who says what the people are thinking most often in the loudest voice.