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

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.

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.

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

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.

An appeal to the reason of the people has never been known to fail in the long run.

You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul.

Every country has the government it deserves.

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

It is impossible to tell which of the two dispositions we find in men is more harmful in a republic, that which seeks to maintain an established position or that which has none but seeks to acquire it.

Envy is the basis of democracy.

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