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.

Politics is the art of the possible.

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.

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

If you must take care that your opinions do not differ in the least from those of the person with whom you are talking, you might just as well be alone.

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

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

Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made.

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.

Every country has the government it deserves.

Television has made dictatorship impossible, but democracy unbearable.

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.