Let every eye negotiate for itself and trust no agent.

The clearest way in the Universe is through a forest wilderness.

To fly as fast as thought, you must begin by knowing that you have already arrived.

Appearance rules the world.

The whole universe is contained within a single human being—you.

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.

All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.

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.

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.

You must love in such a way that the person you love feels free.

If most of us remain ignorant of ourselves, it is because self-knowledge is painful and we prefer the pleasures of illusion.

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.

Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time; the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence.

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

Man is free at the moment he wishes to be.

If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

Never exceed your rights, and they will soon become unlimited.

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

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.

It is a socialist idea making profits is a vice. I consider the real vice is making losses.

All tyrannies rule through fraud and force, but once the fraud is exposed they must rely exclusively on force.

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

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

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

I rebel; therefore I exist.

I prefer liberty with danger than peace with slavery.

If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.

Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.

Religion is a great force—the only real motive force in the world; but what you fellows don't understand is that you must get a man through his own religion and not through yours.

The better you are at communicating negotiating, and handling your fear of rejection, the easier life is.

In all negotiations of difficulty, a man may not look to sow and reap at once; but must prepare business, and so ripen it by degrees.

Never allow a person to tell you no who doesn’t have the power to say yes.

One who believes in himself has no need to convince others.

My experience has shown me that we win justice quickest by rendering justice to the other party.

Without properly kept accounts it is impossible to maintain truth in its pristine purity.

No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot.

Tact is the knack of making a point without making an enemy.

He who does not trust enough, will not be trusted.

Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do.

The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it.

Without the assistance of that Divine Being who ever attended him, I cannot succeed. With that assistance I cannot fail. Trusting in Him who can go with me, and remain with you, and be everywhere for good, let us confidently hope that all will yet be well.

Self-distrust is the cause of most of our failures. In the assurance of strength, there is strength, and they are the weakest, however strong, who have no faith in themselves or their own powers.