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

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.

The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure it is right.

Let him who desires peace prepare for war.

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.

Every communist must grasp the truth: “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”

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

Natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense—nonsense upon stilts.

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.

You have all the characteristics of a popular politician: a horrible voice, bad breeding, and a vulgar manner.

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

A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard.