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

He may be a patriot for Austria, but the question is whether he is a patriot for me.

I say violence is necessary. It is as American as cherry pie.

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

Let him who desires peace prepare for war.

People revere the Constitution yet know so little about it—and that goes for some of my fellow senators.

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.

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.

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.

On the loftiest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own rump.

Politics is the art of the possible.

You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.