As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master.

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

What I wanted was to be allowed to do the thing in the world that I did best, which I believed then and believe now, is the greatest privilege there is. When I did that, success found me.

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

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

I am not aware that any community has a right to force another to be civilized.

I had always hoped that this land might become a safe & agreeable Asylum to the virtuous & persecuted part of mankind, to whatever nation they might belong.

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

Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them.

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

The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.

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.

I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion.

The thought of only being a creature of the present and the past was troubling. I longed for a future, too, with hope in it. The desire to be free, awakened my determination to act, to think, and to speak.

Here the people could stand it no longer and complained of the long voyage; but the Admiral cheered them as best he could, holding out good hope of the advantages they would have.

You assist an evil system most effectively by obeying its orders and decrees. An evil system never deserves such allegiance. Allegiance to it means partaking of the evil. A good person will resist an evil system with his or her whole soul.

Howsoever you may repair it, a rift is a rift.

Do you know that one of the great problems of our age is that we are governed by people who care more about feelings than they do about thoughts and ideas.

The greatest kindness one can render to any man is leading him to truth.

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

The right man is the one who seizes the moment.

The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problems.

Only one man in a thousand is a leader of men—the other 999 follow women.

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

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

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.

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what they are going to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.

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

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.

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.

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

The right of conquest has no foundation other than the right of the strongest.