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

Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made.

The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all.

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

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.

Envy is the basis of democracy.

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

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

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

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.

Television has made dictatorship impossible, but democracy unbearable.

Natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense—nonsense upon stilts.

Politics is the art of the possible.