The quote database

Sensation is unorganized stimulus, perception is organized sensation, conception is organized perception, science is organized knowledge, wisdom is organized life: each is a greater degree of order, and sequence, and unity.

There are a lot of sharks in the world. If you hope to complete the swim you will have to deal with them.

So, if you want to change the world, don’t back down from the sharks.

The most rational cure after all for the inordinate fear of death is to set a just value on life.

The spirit of liberty is the sovereign balm for every injury which our institutions may receive.

Never with my consent shall an officer of the people, compensated for his services out of their pockets, become the pliant instrument of Executive will.

If parties in a republic are necessary to secure a degree of vigilance sufficient to keep the public functionaries within the bounds of law and duty, at that point their usefulness ends.

Limited as are the powers which have been granted, still enough have been granted to constitute a despotism if concentrated in one of the departments.

When this corrupting passion once takes possession of the human mind, like the love of gold it becomes insatiable.

If we would promise we must put ourselves in a position to perform our promise.

We should make every effort to prevent humiliating and degrading prohibition against any of our citizens wishing temporarily to sojourn in foreign countries because of race or religion.

We shall enter into any war with a full consciousness of the awful consequences that it always entails, whether successful or not, and we, of course, shall make every effort consistent with national honor and the highest national interest to avoid a resort to arms.

The public officials charged with executing the law might do injustice in heated controversy through unconscious pride of opinion and obstinacy of conclusion.

The general proposition that freedom of expression upon public questions is secured by the First Amendment has long been settled by our decisions.

that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials

a punishment must not by its severity be degrading to human dignity

We do not consecrate the flag by punishing its desecration, for in doing so we dilute the freedom that this cherished emblem represents.

If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment , it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.

When once a decision is reached and execution is the order of the day, dismiss absolutely all responsibility and care about the outcome.

Convince me that one man may rightfully make another man his slave, and I will no longer subscribe to the Declaration of Independence.

Every slave is a stolen man; every slaveholder is a man-stealer.

Show me the government which can be maintained only by destroying the rights of a portion of the people; and you will indicate the duty of openly revolting against it.

What you demand for yourselves, in virtue of your manhood, I demand for the enslaved at the South, on the same ground.

Hence, I cannot but regard oppression in every form--and most of all, that which turns a man into a thing--with indignation and abhorrence.

War should never be entered upon until every agency of peace has failed; peace is preferable to war in almost every contingency.