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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.

There is nothing more tyrannical than a strong popular feeling among a democratic people.

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

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

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