A real leader is somebody who can help us overcome the limitations of our own individual laziness and selfishness and weakness and fear and get us to do better, harder things than we can get ourselves to do on our own.

I am invariably of the politics of the people at whose table I sit, or beneath whose roof I sleep.

Politics is the art of the possible.

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.

It is impossible to tell which of the two dispositions we find in men is more harmful in a republic, that which seeks to maintain an established position or that which has none but seeks to acquire it.

Every country has the government it deserves.

On the loftiest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own rump.

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

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

Let him who desires peace prepare for war.

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

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

The vice presidency isn’t worth a pitcher of warm piss.