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

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

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul.

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

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.

Every country has the government it deserves.

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

Television has made dictatorship impossible, but democracy unbearable.

I work for a government I despise for ends I think criminal.

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

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

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

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.