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.

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

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul.

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

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

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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