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.

A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard.

Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.

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

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.

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.

The vice presidency isn’t worth a pitcher of warm piss.

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

Every country has the government it deserves.

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

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.

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

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