You should never have your best trousers on when you go out to fight for freedom and truth.

Every country has the government it deserves.

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

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

You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.

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

My people and I have come to an agreement that satisfies us both. They are to say what they please, and I am to do what I please.

The Revolution is made by man, but man must forge his revolutionary spirit from day to day.

Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.

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

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

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

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