Irreverence is the champion of liberty and its only sure defence.

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

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

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

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.

Familiarize yourselves with the chains of bondage and you prepare your own limbs to wear them. Accustomed to trample on the rights of others, you have lost the genius of your own independence and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises among you.

Why has government been instituted? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason & justice without constraint.

The period is now arrived, in which either they or we must change our sentiments, or one or both must fall.

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.