O citizens, first acquire wealth; you can practice virtue afterward.

The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all.

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

Written laws are like spiderwebs: they will catch, it is true, the weak and poor but would be torn in pieces by the rich and powerful.

The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure it is right.

My people and I have come to an agreement that satisfies us both. They are to say what they please, and I am to do what I please.

Whether for good or evil, it is sadly inevitable that all political leadership requires the artifices of theatrical illusion. In the politics of a democracy, the shortest distance between two points is often a crooked line.

The U.S. presidency is a Tudor monarchy plus telephones.

I’m president of the United States, and I’m not going to eat any more broccoli!

Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.

You have all the characteristics of a popular politician: a horrible voice, bad breeding, and a vulgar manner.

All the ills of democracy can be cured by more democracy.

No free man shall be taken or imprisoned or dispossessed or outlawed or exiled, or in any way destroyed, nor will we go upon him, nor will we send against him except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.