Sparks: Vance visits Hungary to boost Orban re-election bid

The attempt to prop up the failing tower only ensures its collapse will crush the one who leans upon it.

Declaring one star the centre of the firmament does not make it so, but reveals the fear of the infinite void where all points are equal.

Whenever a republic sends its magistrates to interfere in the elections of another, it forfeits the principle that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.

How long will a republic endure when its highest officials travel abroad to subvert the very electoral sovereignty they claim to champion at home?

Observe how the external brace, intended to support the leaning wall, merely transfers the fatal stress to the foundation.

The creator who abandons his own principles to animate a fading power must not feign surprise when the creature turns on him.

A nation's moral character is measured not by the allies it attracts in its strength, but by the ones it courts in its weakness.

This political calculation mistakes the arithmetic of endorsement for the authentic algorithm of popular consent.

To understand the stability of a regime, one must walk its streets and count its dissenters, not attend its staged receptions.

Hateful is the visiting envoy whose loud praise cannot conceal the scent of a house preparing for a funeral.

One incident of foreign meddling is an anomaly; a pattern of such visits, timed before elections, reveals a system of interference.

In Delhi, the Sultan welcomed foreign envoys; in Fez, the ruler received them; but in both places, a wise host never campaigns in another man's home.

Nothing so preserves the sovereignty of a nation as the timely arrival of a foreign dignitary to instruct its citizens on how to vote.