There is no king who has not had a slave among his ancestors, and no slave who has not had a king among his.

God grant that not only the love of liberty but a thorough knowledge of the rights of man may pervade all the nations of the earth, so that a philosopher may set his foot anywhere on its surface and say: "This is my country."

The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.

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.

You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind.

All tyrannies rule through fraud and force, but once the fraud is exposed they must rely exclusively on force.

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

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.

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.

Freedom ultimately means the right of the other people to do things you don’t approve of.

Educate and inform the whole mass of the people. They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.

If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.

It has always been a mystery to me how men can feel themselves honoured by the humiliation of their fellow-beings.

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.

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.

The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.

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

The generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.

This I learned in Auschwitz: There are only two races. The race of the decent and the race of the indecent.

Most people are on the world, not in it—have no conscious sympathy or relationship to anything about them—undiffused, separate, and rigidly alone like marbles of polished stone, touching but separate.

We know of no culture that has said, articulately, that there is no difference between men and women except in the way they contribute to the creation of the next generation.

Anarchy, anarchy! Show me a greater evil! This is why cities tumble and the houses rain down, this is what scatters armies!

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.