Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

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.

The most hateful torment for men is to have knowledge of everything but power over nothing.

The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure it is right.

A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard.

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

No human life, not even the life of a hermit, is possible without a world which directly or indirectly testifies to the presence of other human beings.

Politics is the art of the possible.

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

No free man shall be taken or imprisoned or dispossessed or outlawed or exiled, or in any way destroyed, nor will we go upon him, nor will we send against him except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.

There is nothing more tyrannical than a strong popular feeling among a democratic people.

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.

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.