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.

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

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

Treaties, you see, are like girls and roses: they last while they last.

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

Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.

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

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

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!

Television has made dictatorship impossible, but democracy unbearable.

The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure it is right.

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.