I work for a government I despise for ends I think criminal.

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

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

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

People revere the Constitution yet know so little about it—and that goes for some of my fellow senators.

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

Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.

In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in folly.

A real leader is somebody who can help us overcome the limitations of our own individual laziness and selfishness and weakness and fear and get us to do better, harder things than we can get ourselves to do on our own.

A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard.

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

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.

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