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.

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.

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

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

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

Sic semper tyrannis! The South is avenged.

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.

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

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

Television has made dictatorship impossible, but democracy unbearable.

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in folly.