The quote database

It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.

What I do say is that no man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent.

When the white man governs himself, that is self-government; but when he governs himself and also governs another man, that is more than self-government,--that is despotism.

Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man's nature,--opposition to it in his love of justice.

This declared indifference, but, as I must think, real, covert zeal, for the spread of slavery, I cannot but hate.

On the question of liberty, as a principle, we are not what we have been.

Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the government, nor of dungeons to ourselves.

If the minority will not acquiesce, the majority must, or the Government must cease.

The aim of moral discipline is to purify the heart from the rust of passion and resentment, till, like a clear mirror, it reflects the light of God.

Our Constitution does not contain the absurdity of giving power to make laws, and another power to resist them.

The laws of the United States must be executed.

The wisdom of man never yet contrived a system of taxation that would operate with perfect equality.

A State cannot so deem a class of persons a stranger to its laws.

There were times when his optimism appeared forced and formal though I believe it was not really so: there were times when I have almost hated him for his infernal cheerfulness.

The secret of calm cheerfulness is kindliness; no person can be consistently cheerful and calm who does not consistently think kind thoughts.

the need of society drives the human porcupines together--only to be mutually repelled by the many prickly and disagreeable qualities of their nature

To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.

They will presently themselves be compelled to appeal to the law for protection, and those who would use the law as a defense must not deny that use of it to others.

The man who has come to regard the ballot box as a juggler's hat has renounced his allegiance.

We should hold our differing opinions in mutual respect, and, having submitted them to the arbitrament of the ballot, should accept an adverse judgment with the same respect that we would have demanded of our opponents if the decision had been in our favor.

Powerful people maneuver for position and worry endlessly about who is in and who is out, who is up and who is down, forgetting those people whose toil and sweat sends us here and pays our way.

This only will I say, that the most crushing of misfortune's burdens is, that as soon as a charge is fastened upon the unhappy, they are believed to have deserved their sufferings.

No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem.

It is at the bottom of life we must begin, and not at the top. Nor should we permit our grievances to overshadow our opportunities.

I learned the lesson that great men cultivate love, and that only little men cherish a spirit of hatred.