One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: that word is love.

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

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

Civil disobedience becomes a sacred duty when the state becomes lawless or corrupt.

Freedom is not a gift bestowed upon us by other men, but a right that belongs to us by the laws of God and nature.

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.

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.

Speech is civilization itself. The word, even the most contradictory word, preserves contact—it is silence which isolates.

The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free.

As I walked out the door to my freedom I knew that, if I did not leave all the anger, hatred and resentment behind, I would remain a prisoner.

Freedom is to be free from restraint and violence from others.

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

Statism needs war; a free country does not. Statism survives by looting; a free country survives by producing.

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.

One love, one heart, one destiny.

We can disagree and still love each other unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist.

To do as one would be done by, and to love one's neighbor as oneself, constitute the ideal perfection of utilitarian morality.

People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.

Love is never wasted, for its value does not rest upon reciprocity.

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.

The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge.

I have to face life with a newly found passion. I must rediscover the irresistible will to learn, to live and to love.

Do not hire a man who does your work for money but him who does it for love of it.

I am a true laborer: I earn that I eat, get that I wear, owe no man hate, envy no man’s happiness, glad of other men’s good, content with my harm.

It never ceases to amaze me: We all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinion than our own.