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.

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

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

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.

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

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

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

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

Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.

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

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

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

I am no courtesan, nor moderator, nor tribune, nor defender of the people: I am myself the people.