Politics is the art of the possible.

My people and I have come to an agreement that satisfies us both. They are to say what they please, and I am to do what I please.

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.

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.

On the loftiest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own rump.

Let him who desires peace prepare for war.

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

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.

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

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.

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

In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in folly.