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

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

In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in folly.

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.

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

To be turned from one’s course by men’s opinions, by blame, and by misrepresentation shows a man unfit to hold office.

There is no method by which men can be both free and equal.

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

If you must take care that your opinions do not differ in the least from those of the person with whom you are talking, you might just as well be alone.

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

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

Written laws are like spiderwebs: they will catch, it is true, the weak and poor but would be torn in pieces by the rich and powerful.