Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibility, and most people are frightened of responsibility.

A change is brought about because ordinary people do extraordinary things.

Capitalists are no more capable of self-sacrifice than a man is capable of lifting himself up by his own bootstraps.

Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.

Purity of speech, of the mind, of the senses, and of a compassionate heart are needed by one who desires to rise to the divine platform.

So long as you do not achieve social liberty, whatever freedom is provided by the law is of no avail to you.

A conservative is a man who sits and thinks, mostly sits.

What distinguishes the majority of men from the few is their inability to act according to their beliefs.

Democracy is the process by which people choose the man who'll get the blame.

Capital is dead labor, which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more labor it sucks.

Fear is the foundation of most governments.

Lead from the back and let others believe they are in front

If you make peaceful revolution impossible you make violent revolution inevitable

I predict future happiness for Americans, if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.

(...) when a man is denied the right to live the life he believes in, he has no choice but to become an outlaw.

When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser.

Educate and inform the whole mass of the people...they are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.

Democracy means government by the uneducated, while aristocracy means government by the badly educated.

We often give our enemies the means for our own destruction.

Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan.

Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when youmove, fall like a thunderbolt.