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the only thing we have to fear is fear itself

Government is competent when all who compose it work as trustees for the whole people.

Nearly all of us recognize that as intricacies of human relationships increase, so power to govern them also must increase--power to stop evil; power to do good.

In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms

The democratic aspiration is no mere recent phase in human history.

Sometimes we fail to hear or heed these voices of freedom because to us the privilege of our freedom is such an old, old story.

Lives of nations are determined not by the count of years, but by the lifetime of the human spirit.

Sometimes we will be rising toward the heights--then all will seem to reverse itself and start downward.

Let it be impressed upon all hearts that, beautiful as our fabric is, no earthly power or wisdom could ever reunite its broken fragments.

Hence a sound and comprehensive policy should embrace not less the distant future than the urgent present.

You have summoned me in my weakness; you must sustain me by your strength.

Preeminently, the power of our advocacy reposes in our example; but no example, be it remembered, can be powerful for lasting good, whatever apparent advantages may be gained, which is not based upon eternal principles of right and justice.

An Administration would be unworthy of confidence at home or respect abroad should it cease to be influenced by the conviction that no apparent advantage can be purchased at a price so dear as that of national wrong or dishonor.

Good citizens may well claim the protection of good laws and the benign influence of good government, but a claim for office is what the people of a republic should never recognize.

My long-crushed spirit rose, cowardice departed, bold defiance took its place; and I now resolved that, however long I might remain a slave in form, the day had passed forever when I could be a slave in fact.

Though conscious of the difficulty of learning without a teacher, I set out with high hope, and a fixed purpose, at whatever cost of trouble, to learn how to read.

The responsibility of success or failure lay heavily upon me.

Let us render the tyrant no aid; let us not hold the light by which he can trace the footprints of our flying brother.

The fatal poison of irresponsible power was already in her hands, and soon commenced its infernal work.

To make a contented slave, it is necessary to make a thoughtless one

At times I would rise up, a flash of energetic freedom would dart through my soul, accompanied with a faint beam of hope, that flickered for a moment, and then vanished.

At times we were almost disposed to give up, and try to content ourselves with our wretched lot; at others, we were firm and unbending in our determination to go.

From that moment, I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom.

You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man

The moral which I gained from the dialogue was the power of truth over the conscience of even a slaveholder.