Either you will control your government, or government will control you.

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.

Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.

It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.

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.

There comes a time when people get tired of being pushed out of the glittering sunlight of life’s July and left standing amid the piercing chill of an alpine November.

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.

Our task must be to free ourselves…by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.

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

The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.

As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn’t leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I’d still be in prison.

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

I prefer liberty with danger than peace with slavery.

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

Love inspires, illumines, designates and leads the way.

To educate in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.

The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.

It is the responsibility of leadership to work intelligently with what is given, and not to waste time fantasizing about a world of flawless people and perfect choices.

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

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.

Let us remind ourselves that it is ordinary people – men and women, boys and girls – that make the world a special place.

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

One man thinks himself the master of others but remains more of a slave than they are.

No freeman shall be taken, or imprisoned, or outlawed, or exiled, or in any way harmed, nor will we go upon him nor will we send upon him, except by the legal judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.

You cannot possibly have a broader basis for any government than that which includes all the people, with all their rights in their hands, and with an equal power to maintain their rights.

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.

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

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.

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

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