If they have real grievances redress them, if possible; or acknowledge the justice of them, and your inability to do it at the moment. If they have not, employ the force of government against them at once.

The great art of governing consists in not letting men grow old in their jobs.

Good and decent people must be protected and persuaded by gentle means, but the rabble must be led by terror.

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

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.

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.