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

Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.

A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard.

Television has made dictatorship impossible, but democracy unbearable.

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.

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.

Why has the government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.

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

You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.

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.

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

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