Let him who desires peace prepare for war.

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

If you must take care that your opinions do not differ in the least from those of the person with whom you are talking, you might just as well be alone.

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.

All the ills of democracy can be cured by more democracy.

A real leader is somebody who can help us overcome the limitations of our own individual laziness and selfishness and weakness and fear and get us to do better, harder things than we can get ourselves to do on our own.

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

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

Envy is the basis of democracy.

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.

There is no method by which men can be both free and equal.

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

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