Why has the government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.

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.

I am no courtesan, nor moderator, nor tribune, nor defender of the people: I am myself the people.

Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.

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

I am invariably of the politics of the people at whose table I sit, or beneath whose roof I sleep.

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.

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

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

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.

Envy is the basis of democracy.

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul.

Every communist must grasp the truth: “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”