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.

Politics, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.

People revere the Constitution yet know so little about it—and that goes for some of my fellow senators.

An appeal to the reason of the people has never been known to fail in the long run.

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.

Let him who desires peace prepare for war.

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.

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

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.

Do that which consists in taking no action, and order will prevail.

Television has made dictatorship impossible, but democracy unbearable.

Written laws are like spiderwebs: they will catch, it is true, the weak and poor but would be torn in pieces by the rich and powerful.

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