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.

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

The U.S. presidency is a Tudor monarchy plus telephones.

To be turned from one’s course by men’s opinions, by blame, and by misrepresentation shows a man unfit to hold office.

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

My people and I have come to an agreement that satisfies us both. They are to say what they please, and I am to do what I please.

What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him your celebration is a sham.

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.

The affairs of the world are no more than so much trickery, and a man who toils for money or honor or whatever else in deference to the wishes of others, rather than because his own desire or needs lead him to do so, will always be a fool.

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.

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

Whether for good or evil, it is sadly inevitable that all political leadership requires the artifices of theatrical illusion. In the politics of a democracy, the shortest distance between two points is often a crooked line.

Let him who desires peace prepare for war.