This is my doctrine: Give every other human being every right you claim for yourself.

All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.

I prefer liberty with danger than peace with slavery.

The overwhelming importance of the atmosphere means that there are no longer any frontiers to defend against pollution, attack, or propaganda. It means, further, that only by a deep patriotic devotion to one’s country can there be a hope of the kind of protection of the whole planet, which is necessary for the survival of the people of other countries.

Never cross a man, not afraid to die.

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

If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

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.

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in which nothing is, or ought to be, permanent; and they admit that what appears to them today to be good, may be superseded by something better tomorrow.

You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind.

Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts.

If everyone were clothed with integrity, if every heart were just, frank, kindly, the other virtues would be well-nigh unless, since their chief purpose is to make us bear with patience the injustice of our fellows.

Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.

One drop of your kindness makes the ocean sweet.

You are forgiven for your happiness and your successes only if you generously consent to share them.

Every heart that has beat strong and cheerfully has left a hopeful impulse behind it in the world, and bettered the tradition of mankind.

The people turn to a benevolent rule as water flows downwards, and as wild beasts fly to the wilderness.

Tolerance is giving to every other human being every right that you claim for yourself.

A well governed appetite is the greater part of liberty.

If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly two be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in the government to the utmost.

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.

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

Racial discrimination is not a permissible solution... that can only weaken the principle of equality embodied in the Declaration of Independence and the Equal Protection Clause.

Familiarize yourselves with the chains of bondage and you prepare your own limbs to wear them. Accustomed to trample on the rights of others, you have lost the genius of your own independence and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises among you.

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what they are going to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.

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

The period is now arrived, in which either they or we must change our sentiments, or one or both must fall.

Let me give you a tip on a clue to men’s characters: the man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it.

Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect.

If you develop a pure and sincere motivation, in you are motivated by a wish to help on the basis of kindness, compassion, and respect, then you can carry on any kind of work, in any field, and function more effectively.

When I was playing before I retired, I never really understood the appreciation and respect that people gave me. People had treated me like a god or something, and that was very embarrassing.

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

If you want to be successful, you must respect one rule: never lie to yourself.