"For me, the lame part of the Sixties was the political part, the social part. The real part was the spiritual part."

"Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself."

"When the doctrine of allegiance to party can utterly up-end a man's moral constitution and make a temporary fool of him besides, what excuse are you going to offer for preaching it, teaching it, extending it, perpetuating it? Shall you say, the best good of the country demands allegiance to party? Shall you also say it demands that a man kick his truth and his conscience into the gutter, and become a mouthing lunatic, besides?"

"The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out the conservative adopts them."

"Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform."

"Politics is supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first."

"I want you to know that also I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience."

"Politics is just like show business. You have a hell of an opening, you coast for awhile, you have a hell of a closing."

"There is no act of treachery or meanness of which a political party is not capable; for in politics there is no honour."

"There is no gambling like politics."

"Real politics are the possession and distribution of power."

"Not long ago, if you wanted to seize political power in a country you had merely to control the army and the police. Today it is only in the most backward countries that fascist generals, in carrying out a coup d'état, still use tanks. If a country has reached a high degree of industrialization the whole scene changes. The day after the fall of Khrushchev, the editors of Pravda, Izvestiia, the heads of the radio and television were replaced; the army wasn't called out. Today a country belongs to the person who controls communications."

"In the United States, politics is a profession, whereas in Europe it is a right and a duty."

"History suggests only that capitalism is a necessary condition for political freedom. Clearly it is not a sufficient condition."

"Political freedom means the absence of coercion of a man by his fellow men. The fundamental threat to freedom is power to coerce, be it in the hands of a monarch, a dictator, an oligarchy, or a momentary majority."