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.

You have all the characteristics of a popular politician: a horrible voice, bad breeding, and a vulgar manner.

To be turned from one’s course by men’s opinions, by blame, and by misrepresentation shows a man unfit to hold office.

It is a certain sign of a wise government and proceeding, when it can hold men’s hearts by hopes, when it cannot by satisfaction.

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

What experience and history teach is this—that nations and governments have never learned anything from history or acted upon any lessons they might have drawn from it.

The most hateful torment for men is to have knowledge of everything but power over nothing.

Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.

It is impossible to tell which of the two dispositions we find in men is more harmful in a republic, that which seeks to maintain an established position or that which has none but seeks to acquire it.

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.

People revere the Constitution yet know so little about it—and that goes for some of my fellow senators.

I’m president of the United States, and I’m not going to eat any more broccoli!