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.

O citizens, first acquire wealth; you can practice virtue afterward.

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.

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.

My people and I have come to an agreement that satisfies us both. They are to say what they please, and I am to do what I please.

Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.

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

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.

On the loftiest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own rump.

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

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

Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them.