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

What experience and history teach is this—that nations and governments have never learned anything from history or acted upon any lessons they might have drawn from it.

I’m president of the United States, and I’m not going to eat any more broccoli!

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

I am no courtesan, nor moderator, nor tribune, nor defender of the people: I am myself the people.

The most hateful torment for men is to have knowledge of everything but power over nothing.

Why has the government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.

Envy is the basis of democracy.