Thus not only does democracy make every man forget his ancestors, but it hides his descendants and separates his contemporaries from him; it throws him back forever upon himself alone and threatens in the end to confine him entirely within solitude of his own heart.
In order to enjoy the inestimable benefits that the liberty of the press ensures, it is necessary to submit to the inevitable evils that it creates.
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Smell is a potent wizard that transports you across thousand of miles and all the years you have lived.
Nothing is more precious than being in the present moment. Fully alive, fully aware.
Hold every moment sacred. Give each clarity and meaning, each the weight of thine awareness, each its true and due fulfillment.
We must each lead a way of life with self-awareness and compassion, to do as much as we can. Then, whatever happens we will have no regrets.
The universe is wider than our views of it.
The whole universe is contained within a single human being—you.
The present moment is filled with joy and happiness. If you are attentive, you will see it.
When you consider things like the stars, our affairs don't seem to matter very much, do they?
There is not one big cosmic meaning for all, there is only the meaning we each give to our life. . . To seek a total unity is wrong. To give as much meaning to one’s life as possible is right to me.
All that is important in this moment is movement. Make the movement vital and worth living. Do not let it slip away unnoticed and unused.
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.
They [the Americans] have all a lively faith in the perfectibility of man, they judge that the diffusion of knowledge must necessarily be advantageous, and the consequences of ignorance fatal; they all consider society as a body in a state of improvement, humanity as a changing scene, in which nothing is, or ought to be, permanent; and they admit that what appears to them today to be good, may be superseded by something better tomorrow.
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.
A Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.
Irreverence is the champion of liberty and its only sure defence.
They fear love because it creates a world they can't control.
Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.
Liberty without Learning is always in peril and Learning without Liberty is always in vain.
If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.
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.
Civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the state becomes lawless or corrupt.
The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.
Educate and inform the whole mass of the people. They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.
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.
The right of conquest has no foundation other than the right of the strongest.