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.

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

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

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

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

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

Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.

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

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

A real leader is somebody who can help us overcome the limitations of our own individual laziness and selfishness and weakness and fear and get us to do better, harder things than we can get ourselves to do on our own.

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