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

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.

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

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

Television has made dictatorship impossible, but democracy unbearable.

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.

There is no method by which men can be both free and equal.

Why has the government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.

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

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.

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.

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

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