Let him who desires peace prepare for war.

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.

Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.

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.

In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in folly.

Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.

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

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

The affairs of the world are no more than so much trickery, and a man who toils for money or honor or whatever else in deference to the wishes of others, rather than because his own desire or needs lead him to do so, will always be a fool.

The first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull.

I work for a government I despise for ends I think criminal.

The best of all rulers is but a shadowy presence to his subjects.

People revere the Constitution yet know so little about it—and that goes for some of my fellow senators.