The necessity of the times, more than ever, calls for our utmost circumspection, deliberation, fortitude and perseverance.

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

Free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or good or joy worth having.

Man is free at the moment he wishes to be.

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.

The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.

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

When you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing - When you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, butt in favors - When you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you - When you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice - You may know that your society is doomed.

Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore, send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me: I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

Wherever there is injustice, war, discrimination against women, gays and the disadvantaged, I did my best to show up and exert moral persuasion.

Give us grace and strength to forbear and to persevere. Give us courage and gaiety and the quiet mind, spare to us our friends, soften to us our enemies.

You may shoot me with your words, you may cut me with your eyes, you may kill me with your hatefulness, but still, like air, I'll rise.

Continuous effort — not strength or intelligence — is the key to unlocking our potential.

And, more importantly, reach for the stars. And realize that it is never too late—not now, not ever—for you to pursue you passion, your pursuit of perfection. And most importantly, your perseverance for making it happen.