Any excuse will serve a tyrant.

The two qualities that chiefly inspire regard and affection [are] that a thing is you own and that it is your only one.

We all walk in the dark and each of us must learn to turn on his or her own light.

The individual is not accountable to society for his actions, insofar as these concern the interests of no person but himself.

I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.

We must reject the idea that every time a law's broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.

There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self.

I am a true laborer: I earn that I eat, get that I wear, owe no man hate, envy no man’s happiness, glad of other men’s good, content with my harm.

The man who complains about the way the ball bounces is likely the one who dropped it.

If all our misfortunes were laid in one common heap, whence every one must take an equal portion, most people would be contented to take their own and depart.

The place to improve the world is first in one's own heart and head and hands.

Our country is that spot to which our heart is bound.

When you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing - When you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, butt in favors - When you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you - When you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice - You may know that your society is doomed.

Why has government been instituted? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason & justice without constraint.

Freedom is not a gift bestowed upon us by other men, but a right that belongs to us by the laws of God and nature.

I did not seek greatness. I only sought to fulfill my duties.

Either you will control your government, or government will control you.

Freedom is not something that anybody can be given. Freedom is something people take, and people are as free as they want to be.

You find out the necessity of Liberty as you find out the necessity of air—by not having enough of it.

The aim of art, the aim of a life can only be to increase the sum of freedom and responsibility to be found in every man and in the world. It cannot, under any circumstances, be to reduce or suppress that freedom, even temporarily.

Free choice is the greatest gift God gives to his children.

A Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.

You must love in such a way that the person you love feels free.

O beautiful for spacious skies, For Amber waves of grain, For purple mountain majesties Above the fruited plain! America! America! God shed his grace on thee And crown thy good with brotherhood From sea to shining sea!