Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

There is no method by which men can be both free and equal.

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

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

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

Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made.

Politics, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.

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

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.

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

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.

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