Do that which consists in taking no action, and order will prevail.

Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.

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.

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.

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

On the loftiest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own rump.

Television has made dictatorship impossible, but democracy unbearable.

You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.

Treaties, you see, are like girls and roses: they last while they last.

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

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

Let him who desires peace prepare for war.

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