Liberty consists in doing what ones desires.

All cravings are the mind seeking salvation or fulfillment in external things and in the future as a substitute for the joy of Being.

There are two ways to get enough: One is to continue to accumulate more and more. The other is to desire less.

If you have overcome your inclination and not been overcome by it, you have reason to rejoice.

It is not because men's desires are strong that they act ill; it is because their consciences are weak.

The heart's earnest and pure desire is always fulfilled.

Desire is the essence of a man.

I have a deeply hidden and inarticulate desire for something beyond the daily life.

I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is the victory over self.

It is hard to fight desire; but to control it is the sign of a reasonable man.

A desire to be observed, considered, esteemed, praised, beloved, and admired by his fellows is one of the earliest as well as the keenest dispositions discovered in the heart of man.

Plant the seed of desire in your mind and it forms a nucleus with power to attract to itself everything needed for its fulfillment.

Those who enjoy responsibility usually get it; those who merely enjoy exercising authority usually lose it.

Fundamentally, there are only to ways of coordinating the economic activities of millions. One is central direction involving the use of coercion — the technique of the army and the modern totalitarian state. The other is voluntary cooperation — the technique of the marketplace.

Thus not only does democracy make every man forget his ancestors, but it hides his descendants and separates his contemporaries from him; it throws him back forever upon himself alone and threatens in the end to confine him entirely within solitude of his own heart.

I have said that the Declaration of Independence is the ring-bolt to the chain of your nation’s destiny; so, indeed, I regard it. The principles contained in that instrument are saving principles. Stand by those principles, be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at whatever cost.

As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn’t leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I’d still be in prison.

If there is anything in the world a person should fight for, it is freedom to pursue his ideal, because in that is his great opportunity for self-expression, for the unfoldment of the greatest thing possible to him.

I had always hoped that this land might become a safe & agreeable Asylum to the virtuous & persecuted part of mankind, to whatever nation they might belong.

I am the inferior of any man whose rights I trample underfoot. Men are no superior by reason of the accidents of race and color. The are superior who have the best heart—the best brain.

I am not aware that any community has a right to force another to be civilized.

It is clear that the individual who persecutes a man, his brother, because he is not of the same opinion, is a monster.