“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.”

Don’t overestimate the decency of the human race.

It is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man.

Misogynist: A man who hates women as much as women hate one another.

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.

It doesn’t matter who they vote for, they always vote for us.

Democracy is good. I say this because other systems are worse.

Democrats legislate; Republicans investigate.

I’ll have those n**gers voting Democratic for the next 200 years.

Democracy, republics: What do these words signify?

Democracy is a constant tension between truth and half-truth and, in the arsenal of truth, there is no greater weapon than fact.

A democracy is a state which recognizes the subjection of the minority to the majority, that is, an organization for the systematic use of violence by one class against the other, by one part of the population against another.

Democracy, Republic: What do these words signify? What have they changed in the world? Have men become better, more loyal, kinder? Are the people happier? All goes on as before, as always. Illusions, illusions.