“The only good bureaucrat is one with a pistol at his head. Put it in his hand and it’s good-bye to the Bill of Rights.”

Equality before the law is probably forever unattainable. It is a noble ideal, but it can never be realized, for what men value in this world is not rights but privileges.

On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.

Laws are no longer made by a rational process of public discussion; they are made by a process of blackmail and intimidation, and they are executed in the same manner

Morality is doing what is right, no matter what you are told. Religion is doing what you are told, no matter what is right.

The best teacher is not the one who knows most but the one who is most capable of reducing knowledge to that simple compound of the obvious and wonderful.

An idealist is one who, on noticing that roses smell better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup.

You can’t do anything about the length of your life, but you can do something about its width and depth.

If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner.

There are two impossibilities in life: “just one drink” and “an honest politician.”

People do not expect to find chastity in a whorehouse. Why, then, do they expect to find honesty and humanity in government, a congeries of institutions whose modus operandi consists of lying, cheating, stealing, and if need be, murdering those who resist?

Always remember this: If you don’t attend the funerals of your friends, they will certainly not attend yours.

The one permanent emotion of the inferior man is fear – fear of the unknown, the complex, the inexplicable. What he wants above everything else is safety.

On one issue, at least, men and women agree. They both distrust women.

A sense of humor always withers in the presence of the messianic delusion, like justice and the truth in front of patriotic passion.

Love is like war: easy to begin but very hard to stop.

Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.

It is an axiom in my mind, that our liberty can never be safe but in the hands of the people themselves, and that too of the people with a certain degree of instruction. This it is the business of the State to effect, and on a general plan.

India is a country that shares the values of freedom, democracy, basic human rights and the rule of law with the United States and Japan.

Russia does not and cannot have any political choice but democracy.

Democratic societies are unfit for the publication of such thunderous revelations as I am in the habit of making.

Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.

Democracy is the road to socialism.

Information is a basic human right and the fundamental foundation for the formation of democratic institutions.

You and I have never seen democracy; all we’ve seen is hypocrisy.