History is a set of lies, agreed upon.

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.

Not in the clamor of the crowded street, not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng, but in ourselves, are triumph and defeat.

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 Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government—lest it come to dominate our lives and interests.

No matter how outrageous a lie may be, it will be accepted if stated loudly enough and often enough.

That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach.

Since men are neither omniscient nor infallible, they must be free to agree or disagree, to cooperate or to pursue their own independent course, each according to his own rational judgment. Freedom is the fundamental requirement of man's mind.

In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one is useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress.

Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute.

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

When civil fury first grew high, and men fell out they knew not why.

Without education we are in a horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people seriously.

Everything you say should be true but not everything true should be said.

The truth is always exciting. Speak it, then. Life is dull without it.

Only when we realize that there is no eternal, unchanging truth or absolute truth can we arouse in ourselves a sense of intellectual responsibility.

However much you deny the truth, the truth goes on existing.

Amid the seeming confusion of our mysterious world, individuals are so nicely adjusted to a system, and systems to one another and to a whole, that, by stepping aside for a moment, a man exposes himself to a fearful risk of losing his place forever.

No man should be angry with what is true.

History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.

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

Falsehood has an infinity of combinations, but truth has only one mode of being.

Only in men's imagination does every truth find an effective and undeniable existence. Imagination, not invention, is the supreme master of art as of life.