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.

I’m president of the United States, and I’m not going to eat any more broccoli!

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.

I shall be an autocrat: that’s my trade. And the good Lord will forgive me: that’s his.

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

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

On the loftiest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own rump.

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.

Treaties, you see, are like girls and roses: they last while they last.

The more corrupt the republic, the more numerous the laws.

The first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull.

A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard.

Every country has the government it deserves.