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.

It is impossible to tell which of the two dispositions we find in men is more harmful in a republic, that which seeks to maintain an established position or that which has none but seeks to acquire it.

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

Television has made dictatorship impossible, but democracy unbearable.

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.

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

Let him who desires peace prepare for war.

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

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

You should never have your best trousers on when you go out to fight for freedom and truth.

You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

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.