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

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul.

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

A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard.

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

The U.S. presidency is a Tudor monarchy plus telephones.

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.

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

Politics is the art of the possible.

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

Every communist must grasp the truth: “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”