Associate yourself with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation; for 'tis better to be alone than in bad company.

If you surround yourself with the good and righteous, they can only raise you up. If you surround yourself with the others, they will drag you down into the doldrums of mediocrity, and they will keep you there, but only as long as you permit it.

When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President; I'm beginning to believe it.

Civic virtue is not best justified in terms of fair play in a cooperative enterprise for mutual advantage, because citizenship is not a strictly reciprocal relationship in which people receive benefits in proportion to their contributions, but a joint relationship that realizes the common good of freedom and self-government.

For he who quells disorder by a very few signal examples will in the end be more merciful than he who from too great leniency permits things to take their course and so to result in rapine and bloodshed; for these hurt the whole State, whereas the severities of the Prince injure individuals only.

Politicians are not afraid of their mistakes, they are afraid their mistakes will not succeed