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.

Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.

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.

No human life, not even the life of a hermit, is possible without a world which directly or indirectly testifies to the presence of other human beings.

The best of all rulers is but a shadowy presence to his subjects.

The first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull.

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

Television has made dictatorship impossible, but democracy unbearable.

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

The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all.

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in folly.

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