He may be a patriot for Austria, but the question is whether he is a patriot for me.

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

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.

Television has made dictatorship impossible, but democracy unbearable.

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.

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

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

Let him who desires peace prepare for war.

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

I’m president of the United States, and I’m not going to eat any more broccoli!

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

You should never have your best trousers on when you go out to fight for freedom and truth.

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