If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.

Let my enemies devour each other.

The heart of a fool is in his mouth, but the mouth of a wise man is in his heart.

If you make peaceful revolution impossible you make violent revolution inevitable

No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself or get all the credit for doing it.

The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it.

Votes do not fall from the trees like ripe plums. They have to be fought for.

Every great movement must experience three stages: ridicule, discussion, adoption.

You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you don't do too many things wrong.

Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies.

Either you repeat the same conventional doctrines everybody is saying, or else you say something true, and it will sound like it's from Neptune.

Because power corrupts, society's demands for moral authority and character increase as the importance of the position increases.

The rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened.

Any cook should be able to run the country.

We hold our heads high, despite the price we have paid, because freedom is priceless.

Necessity is blind until it becomes conscious. Freedom is the consciousness of necessity.

Political tyranny is nothing compared to the social tyranny and a reformer who defies society is a more courageous man than a politician who defies Government.

Appearances matter and remember to smile.

Any excuse will serve a tyrant.

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.

Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.