Grant me thirty years of equal division of inheritances and a free press, and I will provide you with a republic.

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

Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.

Despotism often presents itself as the repairer of all the ills suffered, the support of just rights, defender of the oppressed, and founder of order.

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

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

A democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it.

There is no country in the world in which everything can be provided for by the laws, or in which political institutions can prove a substitute for common sense and public morality.

Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith.

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.

I do not know if the people of the United States would vote for superior men if they ran for office, but there can be no doubt that such men do not run.

It's not like we did something wrong. We just burned down the church while the choir within sang religious songs.

I want to be remembered most as a writer - one who entertained readers, and, hopefully, stretched their imagination as well.

It's one thing for a man not to know, not to have learned; it's another not to be able to live by what one does know.

Lyrics are always misleading because they make people think that that's what the music is about.

I'm not in this world to live up to your expectations and you're not in this world to live up to mine.

People have said I have a Napoleon complex. But I've always had to fight for everything that I have.

These people didn't know anything about black people, so the only thing they could imagine was the worst thing.

My dream role would be anything where I get to tap-dance.

If we can remember the feeling of love we once had, we can die without ever going away.

The unexpected connections we make might not last, yet stay with us forever