Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.

Freedom (n.): To ask nothing. To expect nothing. To depend on nothing.

Actual aristocracy cannot be abolished by any law: all the law can do is decree how it is to be imparted and who is to acquire it.

Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.

Dictators never invent their own opportunities.

The general tendency of things throughout the world is to render mediocrity the ascendant power among mankind.

Do not do to others what angers you if done to you by others.

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

Fanaticism consists of redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your aim.

Democracy arose from men's thinking that if they are equal in any respect, they are equal absolutely.

How fortunate for leaders that men do not think.

Absolute power does not corrupt absolutely, absolute power attracts the corruptible.

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

In politics, stupidity is not a handicap.

All propaganda has to be popular and has to accommodate itself to the comprehension of the least intelligent of those whom it seeks to reach.

Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.

Liberty does not exist in the absence of morality.

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

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.

Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.