I shall be an autocrat: that’s my trade. And the good Lord will forgive me: that’s his.

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

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

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

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

Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made.

Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.

Every country has the government it deserves.

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.

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

You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.

Written laws are like spiderwebs: they will catch, it is true, the weak and poor but would be torn in pieces by the rich and powerful.