You should never have your best trousers on when you go out to fight for freedom and truth.

You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.

I am no courtesan, nor moderator, nor tribune, nor defender of the people: I am myself the people.

The more corrupt the republic, the more numerous the laws.

Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.

Written laws are like spiderwebs: they will catch, it is true, the weak and poor but would be torn in pieces by the rich and powerful.

No free man shall be taken or imprisoned or dispossessed or outlawed or exiled, or in any way destroyed, nor will we go upon him, nor will we send against him except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.

Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.

Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.

The Revolution is made by man, but man must forge his revolutionary spirit from day to day.

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

Let him who desires peace prepare for war.

I say violence is necessary. It is as American as cherry pie.