He may be a patriot for Austria, but the question is whether he is a patriot for me.

The first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull.

What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him your celebration is a sham.

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.

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

Envy is the basis of democracy.

An appeal to the reason of the people has never been known to fail in the long run.

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

In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in folly.

The U.S. presidency is a Tudor monarchy plus telephones.

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

Why has the government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.

No human life, not even the life of a hermit, is possible without a world which directly or indirectly testifies to the presence of other human beings.