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

The U.S. presidency is a Tudor monarchy plus telephones.

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.

The Revolution is made by man, but man must forge his revolutionary spirit from day to day.

O citizens, first acquire wealth; you can practice virtue afterward.

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

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.

There is nothing more tyrannical than a strong popular feeling among a democratic people.

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.

Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made.

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.

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.

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