The time is near at hand which must determine whether Americans are to be free men or slaves.

I want a president with a record of public service, someone whose life’s work shows our children that we don’t chase fame and fortune for ourselves: we fight to give everyone a chance to succeed.

Disease generally begins that equality which death completes.

The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for white, or women created for men.

Man is free at the moment he wishes to be.

If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards, that would have gotten you labeled a radical 60 years ago, a liberal 30 years ago and a racist today.

To live alone is the fate of all great souls.

It was very lucky for me as a writer that I studied the physical sciences rather than English. I wrote for my own amusement. There was no kindly English professor to tell me for my own good how awful my writing really was. And there was no professor with the power to order me what to read, either.

Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty.

You can hold yourself back from the sufferings of the world, that is something you are free to do and it accords with your nature, but perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid.

I believe that God breathed life into every person and that every person is made in the image of God and you have accept them as they are, on their journey. I’m not here to preach hate or push people down.

There are no favorites in my office. I treat them all with the same general inconsideration.

An index is a great leveller.

He who would be no slave must consent to have no slave. Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves and, under a just God, cannot long retain it.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations much is given. Of other generations much is expected. This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.

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 his restraint that is honorable to a person, not their liberty.

Dictators free themselves, but they enslave the people.

One man cannot hold another man down in the ditch without remaining down in the ditch with him.

A man can be himself only so long as he is alone, and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom, for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.

The happy Union of these States is a wonder; their Constitution a miracle; their example the hope of Liberty throughout the world.

A wise woman wishes to be no one’s enemy; a wise woman refuses to be anyone’s victim.

You have freedom when you’re easy in your harness.

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

We lost the American colonies because we lacked the statesmanship to know the right time and the manner of yielding what is impossible to keep.

Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They came through you but not from you and though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

If you’re going to be crazy, you have to get paid for it or else you’re going to be locked up.

Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago.

We are not actually equal – humanity – if we are not allowed to freely love one another.

Me only have one ambition, y’know. I only have one thing I really like to see happen. I like to see mankind live together – black, white, Chinese, everyone – that’s all.

If we command our wealth, we shall be rich and free; if our wealth commands us, we are poor indeed.

There is no scriptural basis for segregation.

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.

What did I owe the rest of the world? Nothing.

We find ourselves under the government of a system of political institutions, conducing more essentially to the ends of civil and religious liberty, than any of which the history of former times tells us.

How should a man be capable of grooming his own horse, or of furbishing his own spear and helmet, if he allows himself to become unaccustomed to tending even his own person, which is his most treasured belonging?

No iron chain, or outward force of any kind, can ever compel the soul of a person to believe or to disbelieve.

My mother told me two things constantly. One was to be a lady and the other was to be independent, and the law was something most unusual for those times because for most girls growing up in the ’40s, the most important degree was not your B.A. but your M.R.S.

The black press, some liberal sportswriters, and even a few politicians were banging away at those Jim Crow barriers in baseball. I never expected the walls to come tumbling down in my lifetime.

Fidelity and allegiance sworn to the King is only such a fidelity and obedience as is due to him by the law of the land; for were that faith and allegiance more than what the law requires, we would swear ourselves slaves and the King absolute; whereas, by the law, we are free men, notwithstanding those oaths.

Freedom conceives that the mind and spirit of man can be free only if he be free to pattern his own life, to develop his own talents, free to earn, to spend, to save, to acquire property as the security of his old age and his family.

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.

At the end of the day, the TV show is the best job in the world. I get to go anywhere I want, eat and drink whatever I want. As long as I just babble at the camera, other people will pay for it. It’s a gift.

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.

Judge Afiuni has suffered enough. She has been subject to acts of violence and humiliations to undermine her human dignity. I am convinced that she must be set free.

Only the educated are free.

A right delayed is a right denied.

Let us remember we are all part of one American family. We are united in common values, and that includes belief in equality under the law, basic respect for public order, and the right of peaceful protest.

I am a strong believer that without justice, there is no peace. No lasting peace, anyway.

Many people, especially young people, would like to be more independent and on their own. But it is very difficult and they suffer from feelings of isolation. I think that is one reason why young readers support my work.

Human beings may well be unable to break free of the dictatorship of greed that spreads like a miasma over the world, but no longer will we be an inarticulate and ignorant humanity, confused by our enslavement to superior cruelty and weaponry.

If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.

I speak to you only as an American who happens to be an American Negro and one who is proud of that heritage. We ask for nothing special. We ask only that we be permitted to compete on an even basis, and if we are not worthy, then the competition shall, per se, eliminate us.

The United States of America will never be intimidated by thugs and assassins. The killers will fail, and the Iraqi people will live in freedom.

I know I got it made while the masses of black people are catchin‘ hell, but as long as they ain’t free, I ain’t free.

Rebellion is what you make of it. When you’ve been on a tour bus for two months straight, and then you get in your car and drive wherever you want, that can feel rebellious.

We’re not a fragile people. We’re not a frightful people. Our power doesn’t come from some self-declared savior promising that he alone can restore order as long as we do things his way. We don’t look to be ruled.

The effect of liberty to individuals is that they may do what they please: we ought to see what it will please them to do, before we risk congratulations.

Freedom is the right to live as we wish.

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.