I had crossed the line. I was free; but there was no one to welcome me to the land of freedom. I was a stranger in a strange land.

If a man knows more than others, he becomes lonely.

I love people. I love my family, my children… but inside myself is a place where I live all alone and that’s where you renew your springs that never dry up.

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.

I’m fascinated with myself and love hearing the sound of my own voice. I’d like to hear what I have to say. A lot of people don’t like being alone because they truly don’t like themselves, but I love me.

No man is born unto himself alone; who lives unto himself, he lives to none.

Be alone, that is the secret of invention; be alone, that is when ideas are born.

So long as you are secure you will count many friends; if your life becomes clouded you will be alone.

I rebel; therefore I exist.

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

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.

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.

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

Freedom is not something that anybody can be given. Freedom is something people take, and people are as free as they want to be.

Speech is civilization itself. The word, even the most contradictory word, preserves contact—it is silence which isolates.

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.

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

I hope we once again have reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited. There's a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: As government expands, liberty contracts.

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.

It is absurd to hold that a man ought to be ashamed of being unable to defend himself with his limbs, but not of being unable to defend himself with speech and reason.

Loyalty to country always. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.

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.

Our greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed us, but is always the result of a good conscience, good health, occupation, and freedom in all just pursuits.

The greatest tyrannies are always perpetuated in the name of the noblest causes.

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.

Liberty only survives when it is defended.

This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it.

Never cross a man, not afraid to die.

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.

It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.

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

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.

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

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!

The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep’s throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act. . . . Plainly the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon the definition of liberty.

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.

Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish.

Continuous effort — not strength or intelligence — is the key to unlocking our potential.

For great and low there's but one test: 'Tis that each man do his best.

Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion.

Life is thickly sown with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to pass quickly through them. The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us.

If we all can persevere, if we can in every land and office look beyond our own shores and ambitions, then surely the age will dawn in which the strong are just and the weak secure and the peace preserved.

You have to be burning with an idea, or a problem, or a wrong that you want to right. If you're not passionate enough from the start, you'll never stick it out.

There is a force that somehow pushes us to choose the more difficult path whereby we can transcend the mire and muck into which we are so often born. Despite all that resists the process, we do become better human beings.

Abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish. Lose track of the 400 pages and write just one page for each day; it helps. Then, when it gets finished, you are always surprised.

We can do anything we want to if we stick to it long enough.

Faced with a mountain, I will not quit. I will keep on striving until I climb over it, find a path through it, tunnel under it, or simply stay and turn it into a gold mine.

Persistence guarantees that results are inevitable.

Once you say you're going to settle for second, that's what happens to you in life.

Against all odds and despite all the obstacles, we are going to make it.

To remain indifferent to the challenges we face is indefensible. If the goal is noble, whether or not it is realized within our lifetime is largely irrelevant. What we must do therefore is to strive and persevere and never give up.

A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.

The true profession of a man is to find his way to himself.

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.

Action expresses priorities.

The change in motion is proportional to the motive force impressed; and is made in the direction of the right line in which that force is impressed.

It is not uncommon for people to spend their whole life waiting to start living.