An appeal to the reason of the people has never been known to fail in the long run.

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

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.

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.

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.

You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.

A real leader is somebody who can help us overcome the limitations of our own individual laziness and selfishness and weakness and fear and get us to do better, harder things than we can get ourselves to do on our own.

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.

You have all the characteristics of a popular politician: a horrible voice, bad breeding, and a vulgar manner.

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.

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