Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.

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.

A real leader is somebody who can help us overcome the limitations of our own individual laziness and selfishness and weakness and fear and get us to do better, harder things than we can get ourselves to do on our own.

The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all.

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

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

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

The most hateful torment for men is to have knowledge of everything but power over nothing.

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

Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.

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