A primary object should be the education of our youth in the science of government. In a republic, what species of knowledge can be equally important? And what duty more pressing than communicating it to those who are to be the future guardians of the liberties of the country.

The most crucial use of knowledge and education is to understand the importance of developing a good heart.

Read, read, read. Never stop reading. And when you can't read anymore… write.

Natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience.

Public education has not produced an educated public.

Do not be embarrassed by your mistakes. Nothing can teach us better than our understanding of them. This is one of the best ways of self-education.

As an apple is not in any proper sense an apple until it is ripe, so a human being is not in any proper sense a human being until he is educated.

I roamed the countryside searching for answers to things I did not understand.

What signifies knowing the names, if you know not the nature of things?

The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.

It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably gracious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them.

The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.

It does not take a majority of prevail... but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.

Statism needs war; a free country does not. Statism survives by looting; a free country survives by producing.

I could not understand how any man could be so brutalized as to claim the right to dispose of the lives of others, nor how any man could be so lacking in self-esteem as to grant to others the right to dispose of his life.

The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free.

The right to free speech is more important than the content of the speech.

Our task must be to free ourselves…by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.

Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.

I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right.

Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time; the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence.

When one remains silent in the face of oppression, one is on the side of the oppressor.

The welfare of the people has always been the alibi of tyrants.

They [the Americans] have all a lively faith in the perfectibility of man, they judge that the diffusion of knowledge must necessarily be advantageous, and the consequences of ignorance fatal; they all consider society as a body in a state of improvement, humanity as a changing scene, in which nothing is, or ought to be, permanent; and they admit that what appears to them today to be good, may be superseded by something better tomorrow.

Knowledge rests not upon truth alone, but upon error also.

Cherish that which is within you, and shut off that which is without; for much knowledge is a curse.

The possession of knowledge does not kill the sense of wonder and mystery. There is always more mystery.

For beautiful eyes, look for the good in others; for beautiful lips, speak only words of kindness; and for poise, walk with the knowledge that you are never alone.

Teach the ignorant as much as you can; society is culpable in not providing a free education for all and it must answer for the night which it produces. If the soul is left in darkness sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but he who causes the darkness.

It was that which gave promise that in due time the weights would be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that all should have an equal chance. This is the sentiment embodied in the Declaration of Independence. . . . I would rather be assassinated on this spot than surrender it.

All tyrannies rule through fraud and force, but once the fraud is exposed they must rely exclusively on force.

Liberty only survives when it is defended.

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

The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.

They fear love because it creates a world they can't control.

To change your mind and to follow him who sets you straight is to be nonetheless the free agent that you were before.

Irreverence is the champion of liberty and its only sure defence.

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

Freedom of men under government is to have a standing rule to live by, common to every one of that society, and made by the legislative power vested in it; a liberty to follow my own will in all things when the rule prescribes not, and not to be subject to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, arbitrary rule of another man.

The higher you soar the smaller we appear to those who cannot fly.

Racism must be opposed by all means that humanity has at its disposal.

Most people are on the world, not in it—have no conscious sympathy or relationship to anything about them—undiffused, separate, and rigidly alone like marbles of polished stone, touching but separate.

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!

The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.

There is a class of colored people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs — partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs.

There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children.

New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common.

It was not the truth they wanted, but an illusion they could bear to live with.