A leader in the Democratic Party is a boss, in the Republican Party he is a leader.
A radical is a person with both feet firmly planted in the air.
All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter.
Bad officials are elected by good citizens who do not vote.
Capitalism and communism stand at opposite poles. Their essential difference is this: The communist, seeing the rich man and his fine home, says: "No man should have so much." The capitalist, seeing the same thing, says: "All men should hav
Compromise makes a good umbrella, but a poor roof; it is temporary expedient, often wise in party politics, almost sure to be unwise in statesmanship.
Democracy encourages the majority to decide things about which the majority is ignorant.
Democracy is a form of government in which it is permitted to wonder aloud what the country could do under first-class management.
Democracy is a form of government that substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.
Democracy is a government where you can say what you think even if you dont think.
Democracy is a process by which people are free to choose the man who will get the blame.
Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of Jackals by Jackasses.
Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.
Diplomacy --- the art of saying "Nice doggie" 'til you can find a stick.
Don't vote, it only encourages them.
Establishing lasting peace is the work of education; all politics can do is keep us out of war.
Fire, water and government know nothing of mercy.
Fleas can be taught nearly anything that a congressperson can.
For every action there is an equal and opposite government program.
Half of the American people have never read a newspaper. Half never voted for President. One hopes it is the same half.
I belong to no organized party. I am a Democrat.
I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.
I think it's about time we voted for senators with breasts. After all, we've been voting for boobs long enough.
I would like to electrocute everyone who uses the word 'fair' in connection with income tax policies.
I've seen many politicians paralyzed in the legs as myself, but I've seen more of them who were paralyzed in the head.
If Communism goes, I've still got the U.S. House of Representatives.
If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read: PRESIDENT CAN'T SWIM.
In political discussion heat is in inverse proportion to knowledge.
In politics stupidity is not a handicap.
It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly American criminal class except Congress.
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
Join in the new game that's sweeping the country. It's called "Bureaucracy" Everybody stands in a circle. The first person to do anything loses.
Lighthouse: A tall building on the seashore in which the government maintains a lamp and the friend of a politician.
Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those others that have been
No man's life, liberty or property are safe while the legislature is in session.
No poor bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making other bastards die for their country.
Nobody believes the official spokesman... but everybody trusts an unidentified source.
Nothing is so admirable in politics as a short memory.
Nothing would please the Kremlin more than to have the people of this country choose a second rate president.
Our elections are free--it's in the results where eventually we pay.
Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build bridges even when there are no rivers.
Politicians should read science fiction, not westerns and detective stories.
Politics I supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.
Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.
Politics, as a practice, whatever its professions, has always been the systematic organization of hatreds.
Power always has to be kept in check; power exercised in secret, especially under the cloak of national security, is doubly dangerous.
Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Pro is to con as progress is to Congress.
Republicans employ exterminators. Democrats step on bugs.
Sure there are dishonest men in local government. But there are dishonest men in national government too.
Take the diplomacy out of war and the thing would fall flat in a week.
That government is best which governs least.
The first duty of a revolutionary is to get away with it.
The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments.
The trouble with the rat-race is that even if you win, you're still a rat.
The warning message we sent the Russians was a calculated ambiguity that would be clearly understood.
There is a certain inevitability to a couple of things. Death and taxes come to mind. However, death doesn't get worse every time the legislators come together.
There's no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you.
Today the nations of the world may be divided into two classes - the nations in which the government fears the people, and the nations in which the people fear the government.
We may not imagine how our lives could be more frustrating and complex -- but Congress can.
When policy fails try thinking.
With Congress, every time they make a joke it's a law; and every time they make a law it's a joke.