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

What experience and history teach is this—that nations and governments have never learned anything from history or acted upon any lessons they might have drawn from it.

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

I am invariably of the politics of the people at whose table I sit, or beneath whose roof I sleep.

Let him who desires peace prepare for war.

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

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.

Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

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

It is a certain sign of a wise government and proceeding, when it can hold men’s hearts by hopes, when it cannot by satisfaction.

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

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