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

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.

I am invariably of the politics of the people at whose table I sit, or beneath whose roof I sleep.

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

You have all the characteristics of a popular politician: a horrible voice, bad breeding, and a vulgar manner.

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.

Politics is the art of the possible.

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

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

Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.

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.