When the well's dry, we know the worth of water.

There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the induction of a new order of things.

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.

The man who complains about the way the ball bounces is likely the one who dropped it.

He who blames others has a long way to go on his journey. He who blames himself is halfway there. He who blames no one has arrived.

To a greater force, and to a better nature, you, free, are subject, and that creates the mind in you, which the heavens have not in their charge. Therefore if the present world go astray, the cause is in you, in you it is to be sought.

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

There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self.

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.

If there is anything in the world a person should fight for, it is freedom to pursue his ideal, because in that is his great opportunity for self-expression, for the unfoldment of the greatest thing possible to him.

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.

Conscientious objectors to vaccination should stand alone, if need be, against the whole world, in defense of their conviction.

Those who enjoy responsibility usually get it; those who merely enjoy exercising authority usually lose it.

Our task must be to free ourselves…by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.

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

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

When one remains silent in the face of oppression, one is on the side of the oppressor.

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

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.

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

I prefer liberty with danger than peace with slavery.

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.

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.

Fear of serious injury cannot alone justify suppression of free speech and assembly. Men feared witches and burned women. It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears.

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.

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

Liberty without Learning is always in peril and Learning without Liberty is always in vain.

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

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.