Politics is the art of the possible.

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.

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.

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

It is a certain sign of a wise government and proceeding, when it can hold men’s hearts by hopes, when it cannot by satisfaction.

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.

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

A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard.

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.

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.

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

Politics, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.

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.