Karl Marx on Joe Biden

Although a septuagenerian, and since 1970 occupying the public stage, almost without interruption, he contrives to remain a novelty, and to evoke all the hopes that used to centre on an untried and promising youth.  With one foot in the grave, he is supposed not yet to have begun his true career.

Adapted from Karl Marx, Lord Palmerston, in Marx and Engels Collected Works (New York: International Publishers, 1979) Vol. 12, p. 345.