In order to govern, the question is not to follow out a more or less valid theory but to build with whatever materials are at hand. The inevitable must be accepted and turned to advantage.

Large legislative bodies resolve themselves into coteries, and coteries into jealousies.

Obedience to public authority ought not to be based either on ignorance or stupidity.

One should never forbid what one lacks the power to prevent.

One must change one's tactics every ten years if one wishes to maintain one's superiority.

I am sometimes a fox and sometimes a lion. The whole secret of government lies in knowing when to be the one or the other.