It is a certain sign of a wise government and proceeding, when it can hold men’s hearts by hopes, when it cannot by satisfaction.

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.

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

Every country has the government it deserves.

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

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

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

Whether for good or evil, it is sadly inevitable that all political leadership requires the artifices of theatrical illusion. In the politics of a democracy, the shortest distance between two points is often a crooked line.

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

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.

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.

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

I shall be an autocrat: that’s my trade. And the good Lord will forgive me: that’s his.