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

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

You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.

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.

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.

An appeal to the reason of the people has never been known to fail in the long run.

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

Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.

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.

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

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.

Television has made dictatorship impossible, but democracy unbearable.