Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide.

You're not to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it.

Government is not reason, it is not eloquence it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and fearful master.

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

Law describes the way things would work if men were angels.

Power over others is weakness disguised as strength.

In politics, stupidity is not a handicap.

Say what you have to say and the first time you come to a sentence with a grammatical ending - sit down.

Politics is more dangerous than war, for in war you are only killed once.

In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.

I am not an Athenian nor a Greek, but a citizen of the world.

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

In a war of ideas, it is people who get killed.

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

Lead, follow, or get out of the way.

A government is the most dangerous threat to man's rights: it holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force against legally disarmed victims.

I don't think marriage is a civil right, but I think that being able to transfer property is a civil right.

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.

Give to every other human being every right that you claim for yourself - that is my doctrine.

Speaking generally, punishment hardens and numbs, it produces concentration, it sharpens the consciousness of alienation, it strengthens the power of resistance.

The nation which forgets its defenders will be itself forgotten.