I work for a government I despise for ends I think criminal.

If you must take care that your opinions do not differ in the least from those of the person with whom you are talking, you might just as well be alone.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

Envy is the basis of democracy.

I am invariably of the politics of the people at whose table I sit, or beneath whose roof I sleep.

Every country has the government it deserves.

My people and I have come to an agreement that satisfies us both. They are to say what they please, and I am to do what I please.