The good of the people is the greatest law.

Justice is itself the great standing policy of civil society; and any eminent departure from it, under any circumstances, lies under the suspicion of being no policy at all.

I like people and I like them to like me, but I wear my heart where God put it, on the inside.

Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.

No one ever teaches well who wants to teach, or governs well who wants to govern.

Our daily deeds as ordinary South Africans must produce an actual South African reality that will reinforce humanity’s belief in justice, strengthen its confidence in the nobility of the human soul, and sustain all our hopes for a glorious life for all.

We have an epidemic of insecure people in our society today.

If I’m the people’s poet, then I ought to be in people’s hands – and, I hope, in their heart.

Observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all.

I do hope that some of my dissents will one day be the law.

I think the notion that we have all the democracy that money can buy strays so far from what our democracy is supposed to be.

It is better to risk saving a guilty man than to condemn an innocent one.

A successful lawsuit is the one worn by a policeman.

It is not part of a true culture to tame tigers, any more than it is to make sheep ferocious.

Lawless are they that make their wills their law.

Most nations, as well as people are impossible only in their youth; they become incorrigible as they grow older.

What you’re seeing with Occupy Wall Street and the others are people who are unhappy and they’re directing their unhappiness now toward Wall Street and toward those they think are doing too well in our society.

Men make history and not the other way around. In periods where there is no leadership, society stands still. Progress occurs when courageous, skillful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better.

Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves; and under the rule of a just God, cannot long retain it.

So long as governments set the example of killing their enemies, private individuals will occasionally kill theirs.

In the West, as well as some other parts of the world, the personal sense of ego tends to predominate, whereas in other areas, there is a more collective sense of ego. This collective ego emphasizes the ‚we‘ rather than the ‚I.‘

Life is better when people are working, happy, and spending money.

While the rest of the world has been improving technology, Ghana has been improving the quality of man’s humanity to man.

The society based on production is only productive, not creative.

Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of man will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.

Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.

If I were a Negro, I’d be fighting, as Martin Luther King fought, for human recognition and justice. I’d rather go down with my flag flying. If you’re weak or crippled, or you can’t speak out or fight back in some way, then people don’t hesitate to treat you badly.

Society is always taken by surprise at any new example of common sense.

The first requisite for the happiness of the people is the abolition of religion.

Justice and power must be brought together, so that whatever is just may be powerful, and whatever is powerful may be just.

People are like dirt. They can either nourish you and help you grow as a person or they can stunt your growth and make you wilt and die.

Upon the education of the people of this country the fate of this country depends.

I think people inspire me the most. If I meet a person who is incredibly complex, and all of a sudden, I start thinking in rhymes, that person could be a muse.

We are proud of the history of our country; we learned it in school and have grown up hearing of freedom, justice and human rights.

Good humor is one of the best articles of dress one can wear in society.

People that seem so glorious are all show; underneath they are like everyone else.

The world is a republic of mediocrities, and always was.

Some people are jerks, and some people aren’t.

The highest reach of injustice is to be deemed just when you are not.

I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.

The year 2100 will see eugenics universally established. In past ages, the law governing the survival of the fittest roughly weeded out the less desirable strains. Then man’s new sense of pity began to interfere with the ruthless workings of nature. As a result, we continue to keep alive and to breed the unfit.

Instead of noblemen, let us have noble villages of men.

The only thing I can say is that I like people; I like human beings with their faults and with their strengths.

If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.

Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers.

The lessons of history would suggest that civilisations move in cycles. You can track that back quite far – the Babylonians, the Sumerians, followed by the Egyptians, the Romans, China. We’re obviously in a very upward cycle right now, and hopefully that remains the case. But it may not.

We are a forward-looking people, and we must have a forward-looking government.

I have observed that society in general always seems to honor its living conformists and its dead troublemakers.

But while they prate of economic laws, men and women are starving. We must lay hold of the fact that economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings.

There are some loony people in this world!

In acting, you have to pull from real-life situations, from people, to help develop a character.

It is justice and respect that I want the world to dust off and put – without delay, and with tenderness – back on the head of the Palestinian child. It will be imperfect justice and respect because the injustice and disrespect have been so severe. But I believe we are right to try.

No weapon has ever settled a moral problem. It can impose a solution but it cannot guarantee it to be a just one.

One of the peculiarities of Delhi is that the term ‚reform‘ is associated only with passing of laws in Parliament. In fact, the most important reforms are those needed, without new laws, at various level of the government, in work practices and procedures.

Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of a river and his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have not quarrelled with him?

Each new generation born is in effect an invasion of civilization by little barbarians, who must be civilized before it is too late.

We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.

I don’t know the law, the kind of law of quantity and quality, but I think the opportunity of people being able to express themselves and to have the means of production is a great thing. It’s also changing how we’re telling stories.

Liberty must be limited in order to be possessed.

The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose.

I never leaf through a copy of National Geographic without realizing how lucky we are to live in a society where it is traditional to wear clothes.