He may be a patriot for Austria, but the question is whether he is a patriot for me.

Envy is the basis of democracy.

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

The U.S. presidency is a Tudor monarchy plus telephones.

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

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

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

What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him your celebration is a sham.

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

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

You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.

The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all.