The quote database

The Constitution expresses more than the conviction of the people that democratic processes must be preserved at all costs.

The guaranties of civil liberty are but guaranties of freedom of the human mind and spirit and of reasonable freedom and opportunity to express them.

Reader, it is not to awaken sympathy for myself that I am telling you truthfully what I suffered in slavery.

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.

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.

I accept with humility the honor which the American people have conferred upon me.

The optimist cannot fall back, cannot falter; for he knows his neighbor will be hindered by his failure to keep in line.

In what concerns you much, do not think that you have companions: know that you are alone in the world.

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.

The worst evil of disregard for some law is that it destroys respect for all law.

Our whole system of self-government will crumble either if officials elect what laws they will enforce or citizens elect what laws they will support.

The animosities of elections should have no place in our Government, for government must concern itself alone with the common weal.

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

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

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

The more the Afro-American yields and cringes and begs, the more he has to do so, the more he is insulted, outraged and lynched.

The evil cannot be cured or remedied by silence as to its existence.

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.

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.

Whether one be fearful or fearless, foolish or wise, troubled or serene, within that soul lies the cause of its own state or states, and never without.

To grow in self-control, in patience, in equanimity, is to grow in strength and power; and you can only thus grow by focusing your consciousness upon a principle.

The man that stands upon a principle is the same calm, dauntless, self-possessed man under all circumstances.