The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

Natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense—nonsense upon stilts.

A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard.

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

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

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

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

I’m president of the United States, and I’m not going to eat any more broccoli!

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

What experience and history teach is this—that nations and governments have never learned anything from history or acted upon any lessons they might have drawn from it.

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

There is no method by which men can be both free and equal.

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.