The ordinary politician has a very low estimate of human nature. In his daily life he comes into contact chiefly with persons who want to get something or to avoid something. Beyond this circle of seekers after privileges, individuals and organized minorities, he is aware of a large unorganized, indifferent mass of citizens who ask nothing in particular and rarely complain. The politician comes after a while to think that the art of politics is to satisfy the seekers after favors and to mollify the inchoate mass with noble sentiments and patriotic phrases.

The simple opposition between the people and big business has disappeared because the people themselves have become so deeply involved in big business.

Before you can begin to think about politics at all, you have to abandon the notion that there is a war between good men and bad men.

In a place where everybody thinks alike, nobody thinks very much.

Only the very rarest of princes can endure even a little criticism, and few of them can put up with even a pause in the adulation.

Creative ideas come to the intuitive person who can face up to the insecurity of looking beyond the obvious.

There can be no higher law in journalism than to tell the truth and to shame the devil.