Happiness for Americans: if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.

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

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

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.

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

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.

Free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or good or joy worth having.

Man is free at the moment he wishes to be.

The mutual confidence on which all else depends can be maintained only by an open mind and a brave reliance upon free discussion.

Liberty only survives when it is defended.

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.

A really great talent finds its happiness in execution.

All happy families resemble one another, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

Hope itself is a species of happiness, and, perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords; but, like all other pleasures immoderately enjoyed, the excesses of hope must be expiated by pain.

What can be added to the happiness of a man who is in health, out of debt, and has a clear conscience?

You don’t develop courage by being happy in your relationships everyday. You develop it by surviving difficult times and challenging adversity.

But what is happiness except for the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads.

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.

Fear of serious injury cannot alone justify suppression of free speech and assembly. Men feared witches and burned women. It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears.

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.

The right of conquest has no foundation other than the right of the strongest.

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

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.

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.

I rebel; therefore I exist.

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

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.