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

There is nothing more tyrannical than a strong popular feeling among a democratic people.

O citizens, first acquire wealth; you can practice virtue afterward.

Natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense—nonsense upon stilts.

The affairs of the world are no more than so much trickery, and a man who toils for money or honor or whatever else in deference to the wishes of others, rather than because his own desire or needs lead him to do so, will always be a fool.

All the ills of democracy can be cured by more democracy.

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.

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

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

Do that which consists in taking no action, and order will prevail.

The best of all rulers is but a shadowy presence to his subjects.