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

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

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

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

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

The vice presidency isn’t worth a pitcher of warm piss.

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.

The first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull.

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

The affairs of the world are no more than so much trickery, and a man who toils for money or honor or whatever else in deference to the wishes of others, rather than because his own desire or needs lead him to do so, will always be a fool.

No human life, not even the life of a hermit, is possible without a world which directly or indirectly testifies to the presence of other human beings.

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