“The last thing a political party gives up is its vocabulary.”

Those who prize freedom only for the material benefits it offers have never kept it for long.

Those which we call necessary institutions are simply no more than institutions to which we have become accustomed.

Men are not corrupted by the exercise of power or debased by the habit of obedience, but by the exercise of a power which they believe to be illegal and by obedience to a rule which they consider to be usurped and oppressive.

I cannot help fearing that men may reach a point where they look on every new theory as a danger, every innovation as a toilsome trouble, every social advance as a first step toward revolution, and that they may absolutely refuse to move at all.

In the United States, the majority undertakes to supply a multitude of ready-made opinions for the use of individuals, who are thus relieved from the necessity of forming opinions of their own.

In the principle of equality I very clearly discern two tendencies; one leading the mind of every man to untried thoughts, the other prohibiting him from thinking at all.

There are many men of principle in both parties in America, but there is no party of principle.

Christianity is the companion of liberty in all its conflicts, the cradle of its infancy, and the divine source of its claims.

Slavery…dishonors labor. It introduces idleness into society, and with idleness, ignorance and pride, luxury and distress. It enervates the powers of the mind and benumbs the activity of man.

One of the happiest consequences of the absence of government is the development of individual strength that inevitably follows.

Socialism is a new form of slavery.

If ever America undergoes great revolutions, they will be brought about by the presence of the black race on the soil of the United States – that is to say, they will owe their origin not to the equality but to the inequality of conditions.

Rulers who destroy men’s freedom commonly begin by trying to retain its forms. … They cherish the illusion that they can combine the prerogatives of absolute power with the moral authority that comes from popular assent.

In politics shared hatreds are almost always the basis of friendships.

The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.

It is easier for the world to accept a simple lie than a complex truth.

I’m going to focus on people and what they need, not on name calling between politicians.

It is terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged.

I’ve always been about less government.

You need to give yourself the time to think freely. I don’t know if that is political. But sometimes things are political because you observe things that are right or that are wrong and you want to speak on them.

All political power comes from the barrel of either guns, pussy, or opium pipes, and people seem to like it that way.

You politicians remain professional because the voters remain amateur.

The Bosnian Genocide was something that triggered my consciousness and led to an awakening politically for me.

The secular state is the guarantee of religious pluralism. This apparent paradox, again, is the simplest and most elegant of political truths.