This life is worth living, we can say, since it is what we make it, from the moral point of view.

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.

If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn’t sit for a month.

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.

There are a thousand excuses for failure but never a good reason.

Work out your own salvation. Do not depend on others.

Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anybody expects of you. Never excuse yourself.

The deepest sin against the human mind is to believe things without evidence.

Without properly kept accounts it is impossible to maintain truth in its pristine purity.

Reality doesn't go away when it is ignored.

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.

For you can only be free when even the desire of seeking freedom becomes a harness to you.

Civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the state becomes lawless or corrupt.

Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offense, I should consider myself as guilty of treason towards my country, and of an act of disloyalty toward the Majesty of Heaven, which I revere above all earthly kings.

Man is free at the moment he wishes to be.

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

It was while helping others to be free that I gained my own freedom.

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most impressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be saturated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

The progression of emancipation of any class usually, if not always, takes place through the efforts of individuals of that class.

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.

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.

A free press can of course be good or bad, but, most certainly, without freedom it will never be anything but bad. . . Freedom is nothing else but a chance to be better, whereas enslavement is a certainty of the worse.

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.

If by the mere force of numbers a majority should deprive a minority of any clearly written constitutional right, it might, in a moral point of view, justify revolution—certainly would if such a right were a vital one.

I shall work for the Republican party and call on all women to join me, precisely…for what that party has done and promises to do for women, nothing more, nothing less.

Some people are so used to special treatment that equal treatment is considered to be discrimination.

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

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.

I prefer liberty with danger than peace with slavery.

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

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

Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

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.

When even one American, who has done nothing wrong, is forced by fear to shut his mind and close his mouth, then all Americans are in peril.

What light is to the eyes - what air is to the lungs - what love is to the heart, liberty is to the soul of man.

Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.

Men who reject the responsibility of thought and reason can only exist as parasites on the thinking of others.

You and only you are responsible for your life choices and decisions.

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

It is the responsibility of leadership to work intelligently with what is given, and not to waste time fantasizing about a world of flawless people and perfect choices.

Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.

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

In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.

Never trouble another for what you can do for yourself.

I never encounter anything except my responsibility.

We are all one family in the world. Building a community that empowers everyone to attain their full potential through each of us respecting each other's dignity, rights and responsibilities makes thee world a better place to live.

Next to the assumption of power is the responsibility of relinquishing it.