Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.

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

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

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

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

Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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