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.

Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.

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

Every country has the government it deserves.

O citizens, first acquire wealth; you can practice virtue afterward.

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

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard.

Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.

You should never have your best trousers on when you go out to fight for freedom and truth.

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

The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all.

Let him who desires peace prepare for war.