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

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

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

A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

Politics is the art of the possible.

I am no courtesan, nor moderator, nor tribune, nor defender of the people: I am myself the people.

The Revolution is made by man, but man must forge his revolutionary spirit from day to day.

People revere the Constitution yet know so little about it—and that goes for some of my fellow senators.