The quote database

The war of my life had begun; and though one of God's most powerless creatures, I resolved never to be conquered.

My master had power and law on his side; I had a determined will.

I would ten thousand times rather that my children should be the half-starved paupers of Ireland than to be the most pampered among the slaves of America

depriving individuals of the right to choose for themselves how to conduct their intimate relationships poses a far greater threat to the values most deeply rooted in our Nation's history than tolerance of nonconformity could ever do

I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures

At the present moment in world history nearly every nation must choose between alternative ways of life.

The doctrines of despair, of spiritual or political tyranny or servitude, were never taught by such as shared the serenity of nature.

If citizens do not like a law, their duty as honest men and women is to discourage its violation; their right is openly to work for its repeal.

paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people and sending them off to distant lands to die of foreign fevers and foreign shot and shell

The press was to serve the governed, not the governors.

Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government.

This is a glorious region, and the air and life are intoxicating.

Freedom can never yield its fullness of blessings so long as the law or its administration places the smallest obstacle in the pathway of any virtuous citizen.

There can be no permanent disfranchised peasantry in the United States.

Bad local government is certainly a great evil, which ought to be prevented; but to violate the freedom and sanctities of the suffrage is more than an evil.

Under our system there is a remedy for all mere political evils in the sound sense and sober judgment of the people.

After becoming citizens they are entitled, under the Constitution and laws, to be placed on a perfect equality with native-born citizens, and in this character they should ever be kindly recognized.

One great object of the Constitution was to restrain majorities from oppressing minorities or encroaching upon their just rights.

Genius is free to announce its inventions and discoveries, and the hand is free to accomplish whatever the head conceives not incompatible with the rights of a fellow-being.

Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires.

As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed.

The people themselves become the willing instruments of their own debasement and ruin.

It is only when the people become ignorant and corrupt, when they degenerate into a populace, that they are incapable of exercising the sovereignty.

the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers.

The right to dissent peaceably, within the guardrails of our Republic, is perhaps our nation's greatest strength.