The quote database

One great object of the Constitution was to restrain majorities from oppressing minorities or encroaching upon their just rights.

National honor is national property of the highest value.

If errors have been committed they ought to be corrected; if the policy is sound it ought to be supported.

the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers.

The most serious effect upon the poor comes when dependence upon the charitable society is substituted for the natural outgoing of human love and sympathy, which, happily, we all possess in some degree.

The right to dissent peaceably, within the guardrails of our Republic, is perhaps our nation's greatest strength.

ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country

No body can give more power than he has himself; and he that cannot take away his own life, cannot give another power over it.

The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but to have only the law of nature for his rule.

It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.

Surely the State has no right to cleanse public debate to the point where it is grammatically palatable to the most squeamish among us.

The constitutional right of free expression is powerful medicine in a society as diverse and populous as ours.

Between subjection to the will of others and the virtues of self-help and self-government there is a natural incompatibility.

One person with a belief is a social power equal to ninety-nine who have only interests.

A good despotism is an altogether false ideal, which practically (except as a means to some temporary purpose) becomes the most senseless and dangerous of chimeras.

One of the benefits of freedom is that under it the ruler can not pass by the people's minds, and amend their affairs for them without amending them.

Responsibility is null when nobody knows who is responsible; nor, even when real, can it be divided without being weakened.

The subjection of women to men being a universal custom, any departure from it quite naturally appears unnatural.

In regard to foreign nations, the groundwork of my policy will be justice on our part to all, submitting to injustice from none.

There was a Care on my Mind so to pass my Time, that nothing might hinder me from the most steady Attention to the Voice of the true Shepherd.

You are good when you strive to give of yourself.

Work is love made visible.

The guarantee of equal protection cannot mean one thing when applied to one individual and something else when applied to a person of another color.

The observed worker should be made to realize the purpose and importance of the measurement. The observing should always be done with his full knowledge and hearty coöperation.

These possibilities of mental development are still further increased when the man makes his own records. This leads to closer attention, to more interest in the work, and to a realization of the man as to what the record really means, and what value it represents.