I am no courtesan, nor moderator, nor tribune, nor defender of the people: I am myself the people.

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

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.

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

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.

No human life, not even the life of a hermit, is possible without a world which directly or indirectly testifies to the presence of other human beings.

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

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.

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

I shall be an autocrat: that’s my trade. And the good Lord will forgive me: that’s his.

You have all the characteristics of a popular politician: a horrible voice, bad breeding, and a vulgar manner.

In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in folly.

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.