Treaties, you see, are like girls and roses: they last while they last.

To be turned from one’s course by men’s opinions, by blame, and by misrepresentation shows a man unfit to hold office.

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

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.

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.

Every country has the government it deserves.

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

Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.

Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.

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

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

What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him your celebration is a sham.

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