Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves.

The seed of revolution is repression.

It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that you'll do things differently.

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

It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones.

Give us the child for 8 years and it will be a Bolshevik forever.

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

It is not because men's desires are strong that they act ill; it is because their consciences are weak.

Government can easily exist without laws, but law cannot exist without government.

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

Can a nation be free if it oppresses other nations? It cannot.

Any cook should be able to run the country.

Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience.

Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons.

Better to die fighting for freedom than be a prisoner all the days of your life.

I use emotion for the many and reserve reason for the few

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

Governments constantly choose between telling lies and fighting wars, with the end result always being the same. One will always lead to the other.

There are always three speeches, for every one you actually gave. The one you practiced, the one you gave, and the one you wish you gave.

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