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.

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

There is no method by which men can be both free and equal.

You should never have your best trousers on when you go out to fight for freedom and truth.

O citizens, first acquire wealth; you can practice virtue afterward.

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.

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.

Envy is the basis of democracy.

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.

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

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

I am invariably of the politics of the people at whose table I sit, or beneath whose roof I sleep.