Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

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.

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

Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.

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

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

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

The affairs of the world are no more than so much trickery, and a man who toils for money or honor or whatever else in deference to the wishes of others, rather than because his own desire or needs lead him to do so, will always be a fool.

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

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

The U.S. presidency is a Tudor monarchy plus telephones.

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

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.