The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure it is right.

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

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

Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made.

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

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

You have all the characteristics of a popular politician: a horrible voice, bad breeding, and a vulgar manner.

What experience and history teach is this—that nations and governments have never learned anything from history or acted upon any lessons they might have drawn from it.

Television has made dictatorship impossible, but democracy unbearable.

A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard.

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

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

I am invariably of the politics of the people at whose table I sit, or beneath whose roof I sleep.