I shall be an autocrat: that’s my trade. And the good Lord will forgive me: that’s his.

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.

Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

To be turned from one’s course by men’s opinions, by blame, and by misrepresentation shows a man unfit to hold office.

Politics is the art of the possible.

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

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

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