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

Let him who desires peace prepare for war.

No free man shall be taken or imprisoned or dispossessed or outlawed or exiled, or in any way destroyed, nor will we go upon him, nor will we send against him except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.

I am no courtesan, nor moderator, nor tribune, nor defender of the people: I am myself the people.

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

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

The more corrupt the republic, the more numerous the laws.

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 best of all rulers is but a shadowy presence to his subjects.

Envy is the basis of democracy.

The vice presidency isn’t worth a pitcher of warm piss.

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.

You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.