You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.

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

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

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

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.

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

Every country has the government it deserves.

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

Natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense—nonsense upon stilts.

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.

Written laws are like spiderwebs: they will catch, it is true, the weak and poor but would be torn in pieces by the rich and powerful.

You have all the characteristics of a popular politician: a horrible voice, bad breeding, and a vulgar manner.

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.