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

A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard.

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

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

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

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 whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

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

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

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.

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

You should never have your best trousers on when you go out to fight for freedom and truth.

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