Let him who desires peace prepare for war.

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.

It is impossible to tell which of the two dispositions we find in men is more harmful in a republic, that which seeks to maintain an established position or that which has none but seeks to acquire it.

A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard.

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.

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

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.

The first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull.

I am no courtesan, nor moderator, nor tribune, nor defender of the people: I am myself the people.

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

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

All the ills of democracy can be cured by more democracy.

Politics, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.