The quote database

Most of the friends I have seen have turned out the bitterest enemies, or cold, uncomfortable acquaintance.

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.

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.

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

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

The calculated killing of a human being by the State involves, by its very nature, a denial of the executed person's humanity.

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.

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

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.

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

Convince me that liberty is not the inalienable birthright of every human being, of whatever complexion or clime, and I will give that instrument to the consuming fire.

What right have I to be free, that another man cannot prove himself to possess by nature?

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.

Slavery cannot bear one ray of light, or the slightest criticism.

While a slave remains in his fetters, the land must have no rest.

All other work but this is worthless; it is slaves’ work—mere toiling to live, that we may live to toil.

Accordingly a function of free speech under our system of government is to invite dispute.

Free speech--the glory of our system of government--should not be sacrificed on anything less than plain and objective proof of danger that the evil advocated is imminent.

Otherwise, free speech which is the strength of the Nation will be the cause of its destruction.

The quality of advocacy turns on the depth of the conviction; and government has no power to invade that sanctuary of belief and conscience.

The great Government we loved has too often been made use of for private and selfish purposes, and those who used it had forgotten the people.

Only it seems to me a grievous error in a ruler to quarrel with all his subjects at once.