Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in us.

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.

The progression of emancipation of any class usually, if not always, takes place through the efforts of individuals of that class.

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

There is a class of colored people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs — partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs.

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

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

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.

Man is a mental being, and to know this is the first step on the road to freedom, for as long as you believe yourself to be primarily physical, you will remain in bondage, that is to say, to your own habits of thought, for there is no other bondage.

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.

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.

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

Our country is that spot to which our heart is bound.

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

The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.

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.

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

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.

You cannot possibly have a broader basis for any government than that which includes all the people, with all their rights in their hands, and with an equal power to maintain their rights.

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

The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.

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

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 was that which gave promise that in due time the weights would be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that all should have an equal chance. This is the sentiment embodied in the Declaration of Independence. . . . I would rather be assassinated on this spot than surrender it.

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

What light is to the eyes - what air is to the lungs - what love is to the heart, liberty is to the soul of man.

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.

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.

If by the mere force of numbers a majority should deprive a minority of any clearly written constitutional right, it might, in a moral point of view, justify revolution—certainly would if such a right were a vital one.

If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly two be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in the government to the utmost.

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

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

When we practice loving kindness and compassion we are the first ones to profit.

To have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part.

Listen with ears of tolerance, see through the eyes of compassion, speak with language of love.

To love or have loved, that is enough. Ask nothing further. There is no other pearl of be found in the dark folds of life.

Those who love deeply never grow old; they may die of old age, but they die young.

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