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.

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

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

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

Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people?

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in

There is, in fact, a manly and lawful passion for equality which excites men to wish all to be powerful and honored.

The happy and the powerful do not go into exile, and there are no surer guarantees of equality among men than poverty and misfortune.

Unable to perceive a single chance of regaining their equality, they give up to despair, and allow themselves to fall below the dignity of human nature.

Men of the best intentions and soundest views may differ in their construction of some parts of the Constitution, but there are others on which dispassionate reflection can leave no doubt.

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

The laws of the United States must be executed.

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

The American system rests on the assertion of the equal right of every man to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, to freedom of conscience, to the culture and exercise of all his faculties.

The cause of freedom is not the cause of a race or a sect, a party or a class,—it is the cause of human kind, the very birthright of humanity.

Let us then, here and now, recognize this force and resolve to make the most of it—not the boys less, but the girls more.

Only the BLACK WOMAN can say “when and where I enter, in the quiet, undisputed dignity of my womanhood, without violence and without suing or special patronage, then and there the whole Negro race enters with me.”

Nay, ’tis woman’s strongest vindication for speaking that the world needs to hear her voice.

The case before us illustrates better than most that the judicial power is often difficult in its exercise.

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

No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family.

Furthermore, Friendship seems to be the bond of Social Communities, and legislators seem to be more anxious to secure it than Justice even.

In the realm of time there is no aristocracy of wealth, and no aristocracy of intellect.

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.