Honest differences are often a healthy sign of progress.

Silence is one of the hardest arguments to refute.

If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace, and this single reflection, well applied, is sufficient to awaken every man to duty.

If you spend your time hoping someone will suffer the consequences for what they did to your heart, then you’re allowing them to hurt you a second time in your mind.

Let no man pull you so low as to hate him.

Fear not those who argue but those who dodge.

Do not think of knocking out another person's brains because he differs in opinion from you. It would be as rational to knock yourself on the head because you differ from yourself ten years ago.

Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.

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

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

A Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.

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

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.

The welfare of the people has always been the alibi of tyrants.

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

Freedom is a road seldom traveled by the multitude.

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

Loyalty to country always. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.

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.

Conscientious objectors to vaccination should stand alone, if need be, against the whole world, in defense of their conviction.

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."

A thief is a man in need. A liar is a man in fear.

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.

Since men are neither omniscient nor infallible, they must be free to agree or disagree, to cooperate or to pursue their own independent course, each according to his own rational judgment. Freedom is the fundamental requirement of man's mind.

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

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

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

Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.

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.

Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

Fear of serious injury cannot alone justify suppression of free speech and assembly. Men feared witches and burned women. It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears.

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

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.

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

I have said that the Declaration of Independence is the ring-bolt to the chain of your nation’s destiny; so, indeed, I regard it. The principles contained in that instrument are saving principles. Stand by those principles, be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at whatever cost.

If one but tell a thing well, it moves on with undying voice, and over the fruitful earth and across the sea goes the bright gleam of noble deeds ever unquenchable.

Let thy speech be short, comprehending much in few words

The only way to make sure people you agree with can speak is to support the rights of people you don’t agree with.

Instead of speaking saintly words we must act them.