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

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

On the loftiest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own rump.

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

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

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

Why has the government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.

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

Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.

The more corrupt the republic, the more numerous the laws.

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

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.