Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave.

The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.

College isn't the place to go for ideas.

There is no education like adversity.

There will be, in the next generation or so, a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them, but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda or brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods. And this seems to be the final revolution.

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

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.

To change your mind and to follow him who sets you straight is to be nonetheless the free agent that you were before.

If we are to achieve richer culture, rich in contrasting values, we must recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities, and so weave a less arbitrary social fabric, one in which each diverse human gift will find a fitting place.

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

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 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.

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

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

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

Early in life I have noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper, but in Spain, for the first time, I saw newspaper reports which did not bear any relation to the facts, not even the relationship which is implied in an ordinary lie. I saw great battles reported where there had been no fighting, and complete silence where hundreds of men had been killed. I saw troops who had fought bravely denounced as cowards and traitors, and others who had never seen a shot fired hailed as heroes of imaginary victories; and I saw newspapers in London retailing these lies and eager intellectuals building emotional superstructures over events that never happened. I saw, in fact, history being written not in terms of what happened but of what ought to have happened according to various “party lines.”

Our country is that spot to which our heart is bound.

Never cross a man, not afraid to die.

It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably gracious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them.

Wherever there is injustice, war, discrimination against women, gays and the disadvantaged, I did my best to show up and exert moral persuasion.

Free choice is the greatest gift God gives to his children.

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.

Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance.

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.

The possession of knowledge does not kill the sense of wonder and mystery. There is always more mystery.

There is nothing so absurd or ridiculous that has not at some time been said by some philosopher.

The most crucial use of knowledge and education is to understand the importance of developing a good heart.

One cannot conceive anything so strange and so implausible that it has not already been said by one philosopher or another.

When you fear something, learn as much about it as you can. Knowledge conquers fear.