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

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.

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

The more corrupt the republic, the more numerous the laws.

The vice presidency isn’t worth a pitcher of warm piss.

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

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

I say violence is necessary. It is as American as cherry pie.

I work for a government I despise for ends I think criminal.

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.

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.

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

The first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull.