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.

Every country has the government it deserves.

Do that which consists in taking no action, and order will prevail.

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.

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

Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.

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

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.

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

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

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

The first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull.

The more corrupt the republic, the more numerous the laws.