As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.

Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.

As men are not able to fight against death, misery, ignorance, they have taken it into their heads, in order to be happy, not to think of them at all.

At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst.

What makes us Americans is our shared commitment to an ideal – that all of us are created equal, and all of us have the chance to make of our lives what we will.

Death is the wish of some, the relief of many, and the end of all.

Shall I tell you what the real evil is? To cringe to the things that are called evils, to surrender to them our freedom, in defiance of which we ought to face any suffering.

How can a woman be expected to be happy with a man who insists on treating her as if she were a perfectly normal human being.

The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you can see.

So what we’re talking about here is human rights. The right to live like a human. The right to live, period. And what we’re facing in Africa is an unprecedented threat to human dignity and equality.

I do think there must be some kind of interaction between your living life and the life that goes on from here.

What I believe unites the people of this nation, regardless of race or region or party, young or old, rich or poor, is the simple, profound belief in opportunity for all – the notion that if you work hard and take responsibility, you can get ahead.

Everything can change at any moment, suddenly and forever.

All government, of course, is against liberty.

I feel a distaste for hunting, first because of a kind of Buddhist respect for the unity and sacredness of all life, and also because the pursuit of a hare or chamois strikes me as a kind of ‚escape of energy,‘ that is, the expenditure of our effort in an illusory end, one devoid of profit.

Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.

Each time we cooperate with God, we take one more giant step forward. Because when God asks us to change, it means that He always has something better to give us – more freedom, greater joy, and greater blessings.

I am a deeply religious nonbeliever – this is a somewhat new kind of religion.

Then not only custom, but also nature affirms that to do is more disgraceful than to suffer injustice, and that justice is equality.

Existence precedes and rules essence.

Morality is the theory that every human act must be either right or wrong, and that 99 % of them are wrong.

My parents taught me never to judge others based on whom they love, what color their skin is, or their religion.

Good men by nature, wish to know. I know that many will call this useless work… men who desire nothing but material riches and are absolutely devoid of that of wisdom, which is the food and only true riches of the mind.

The good opinion of mankind, like the lever of Archimedes, with the given fulcrum, moves the world.

Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.

Freedom is the open window through which pours the sunlight of the human spirit and human dignity.

To me, if life boils down to one thing, it’s movement. To live is to keep moving.

Yeah, I did see where the people dissing me were coming from. But, it’s like, anything that happened in the past between black and white, I can’t really speak on it, because I wasn’t there. I don’t feel like me being born the color I am makes me any less of a person.

My philosophy is simple: It’s a down-home, common, horse-sense approach to things.

Concentration of executive power, unless it’s very temporary and for specific circumstances, let’s say fighting world war two, it’s an assault on democracy.

Freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being. With freedom comes responsibility. For the person who is unwilling to grow up, the person who does not want to carry his own weight, this is a frightening prospect.

The very design of neoliberal principles is a direct attack on democracy.

America is a friend to the people of Iraq. Our demands are directed only at the regime that enslaves them and threatens us. When these demands are met, the first and greatest benefit will come to Iraqi men, women and children.

Man, so long as he remains free, has no more constant and agonizing anxiety than find as quickly as possible someone to worship.

It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.

We’ve come a long way from the days where there was state-enforced segregation. But we still have a way to go.

Fear is present when we forget that we are a part of God’s divine design. Learning to experience authentic love means abandoning ego’s insistence that you have much to fear and that you are in an unfriendly world. You can make the decision to be free from fear and doubt and return to the brilliant light of love that is always with you.

Why do I not seek some real good; one which I could feel, not one which I could display?

Man is, properly speaking, based upon hope, he has no other possession but hope; this world of his is emphatically the place of hope.

Morality is the herd-instinct in the individual.

All philosophy lies in two words, sustain and abstain.

Freedom in general may be defined as the absence of obstacles to the realization of desires.

The infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists. That is why they invented Hell.

My theory has always been, that if we are to dream, the flatteries of hope are as cheap, and pleasanter, than the gloom of despair.

A man is a god in ruins. When men are innocent, life shall be longer, and shall pass into the immortal, as gently as we awake from dreams.

It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others: or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own.

Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.

By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.

Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul.

Nothing can have value without being an object of utility.

The universe may have a purpose, but nothing we know suggests that, if so, this purpose has any similarity to ours.

Admiration is the daughter of ignorance.

All this talk about equality. The only thing people really have in common is that they are all going to die.

Man is an intelligence in servitude to his organs.

Each thing is of like form from everlasting and comes round again in its cycle.

Blessedness is not the reward of virtue but virtue itself.

Nature is not human hearted.

Man – a being in search of meaning.

The moral arc of the universe bends at the elbow of justice.

The proper study of Mankind is Man.

To see and listen to the wicked is already the beginning of wickedness.