The quote database

we ought to give our friend pain if it will benefit him, but not to the extent of breaking off our friendship; but just as we make use of some biting medicine, that will save and preserve the life of the patient

He who is wise tries to harmonise the wishes that seek for self-gratification with the wish for the social good, and only thus can he realise his higher self.

The laws of friendship are austere and eternal, of one web with the laws of nature and of morals.

Truth is the summit of being; justice is the application of it to affairs.

Work rather for those interests which the divinities honor and promote,--justice, love, freedom, knowledge, utility.

If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion

Those who begin coercive elimination of dissent soon find themselves exterminating dissenters.

The principle then lies about like a loaded weapon ready for the hand of any authority that can bring forward a plausible claim of an urgent need.

with a little practical wisdom, it will convert the constitutional Bill of Rights into a suicide pact

neither federal nor state government acts compatibly with the equal protection principle when a law or official policy denies to women, simply because they are women, full citizenship stature -- equal opportunity to aspire, achieve, participate in and contribute to society based on their individual talents and capacities

"Inherent differences" between men and women, we have come to appreciate, remain cause for celebration, but not for denigration of the members of either sex or for artificial constraints on an individual's opportunity.

To this end, liberal and permanent provision should be made for the support of free schools by the State governments, and, if need be, supplemented by legitimate aid from national authority.

Human judgment is never unerring, and is rarely regarded as otherwise than wrong by the unsuccessful party in the contest.

It is during our most challenging and uncertain moments that our Nation's commitment to due process is most severely tested; and it is in those times that we must preserve our commitment at home to the principles for which we fight abroad.

We have long since made clear that a state of war is not a blank check for the President when it comes to the rights of the Nation's citizens.

I do not pretend to understand the moral universe, the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways. I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. But from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice.

Other decent men are so alienated by such conduct that in their turn they abandon all effort to fight for reform, believing reformers to be either hypocrites or fools.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness

If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.

It is over the lowest class of mankind that government by terror is intended to operate, and it is on them that it operates to the worst effect.

A constitution is a thing antecedent to a government, and a government is only the creature of a constitution.

Reckless audacity came to be considered the courage of a loyal ally; prudent hesitation, specious cowardice; moderation was held to be a cloak for unmanliness; ability to see all sides of a question, inaptness to act on any.

Words had to change their ordinary meaning and to take that which was now given them.

I cannot believe that at this stage in our history, the American people would ever knowingly support purposeless vengeance.

The position of the Negro today in America is the tragic but inevitable consequence of centuries of unequal treatment.