The quote database

It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.

Our constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens.

Any broader view of this authority would effectively empower a majority to silence dissidents simply as a matter of personal predilections.

The constitutional right of free expression is powerful medicine in a society as diverse and populous as ours.

The most respectful deference is due to doubts originating in pure patriotism and sustained by venerated authority.

Remember, then, that I, at least, have warned you, that the happiness of your life, and its power, and its part and rank in earth or in heaven, depend on the way you pass your days now.

The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way

Only an unmitigated despotism demands that the individual citizen shall obey unconditionally every mandate of persons in authority.

There is no act which more imperatively requires to be performed under a strong sense of individual responsibility than the nomination to employments.

The interest of the people is that there should be full liberty of censure on every public officer, and on every public act or measure.

Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.

A Sultan's favourite slave has slaves under her, over whom she tyrannizes; but the desirable thing would be that she should neither have slaves nor be a slave.

Those only are happy (I thought) who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness; on the happiness of others, on the improvement of mankind, even on some art or pursuit, followed not as a means, but as itself an ideal end.

For the first time in our history the person elected to the Vice-Presidency of the United States, by the happening of a contingency provided for in the Constitution, has had devolved upon him the Presidential office.

In regard to foreign nations, the groundwork of my policy will be justice on our part to all, submitting to injustice from none.

In all public expenditures the most rigid economy should be resorted to, and, as one of its results, a public debt in time of peace be sedulously avoided.

There was a Care on my Mind so to pass my Time, that nothing might hinder me from the most steady Attention to the Voice of the true Shepherd.

Now to keep faithful to the pure Counsellor, and under trying Circumstances suffer Adversity for Righteousness Sake, in this there is a Reward.

In this the Endowments of Men are so employed, that the Friend and the Governor are united in one, and oppressive Customs come to an End.

Have none of my Fellow Creatures an equitable Right to any Part which is called mine?

Deep-rooted Customs, though wrong, are not easily altered; but it is the Duty of every one to be firm in that which they certainly know is right for them.

Say not, “I have found the truth,” but rather, “I have found a truth.”

For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.

Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul.

Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.