Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made.

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

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.

The more corrupt the republic, the more numerous the laws.

What experience and history teach is this—that nations and governments have never learned anything from history or acted upon any lessons they might have drawn from it.

An appeal to the reason of the people has never been known to fail in the long run.

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

No human life, not even the life of a hermit, is possible without a world which directly or indirectly testifies to the presence of other human beings.

The Revolution is made by man, but man must forge his revolutionary spirit from day to day.

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.

Every country has the government it deserves.

There is nothing more tyrannical than a strong popular feeling among a democratic people.

It is a certain sign of a wise government and proceeding, when it can hold men’s hearts by hopes, when it cannot by satisfaction.