There is a certain enthusiasm in liberty, that makes human nature rise above itself, in acts of bravery and heroism.

It is necessary for him who lays out a state and arranges laws for it to presuppose that all men are evil and that they are always going to act according to the wickedness of their spirits whenever they have free scope.

Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities… because it is the quality which guarantees all others.

You should read history and look at ostracism, persecution, martyrdom, and that kind of thing. They always happen to the best men, you know.

If pleasure was not followed by pain, who would forbear it?

Mortals are easily tempted to pinch the life out of their neighbour’s buzzing glory, and think that such killing is no murder.

Most damage that others do us is out of fear, humiliation and pain. Those feelings occur in all of us, not just in those of us who profess a certain religious or racial devotion.

It was times like these when I thought my father, who hated guns and had never been to any wars, was the bravest man who ever lived.

I have never regarded myself as a hero, but Tenzing undoubtedly was.

I just have an enthusiasm for life.

The lie is a condition of life.

If we take the generally accepted definition of bravery as a quality which knows no fear, I have never seen a brave man. All men are frightened. The more intelligent they are, the more they are frightened.

A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer.

Repeal the Missouri Compromise – repeal all compromises – repeal the Declaration of Independence – repeal all past history, you still cannot repeal human nature. It will be the abundance of man’s heart that slavery extension is wrong; and out of the abundance of his heart, his mouth will continue to speak.

None but a coward dares to boast that he has never known fear.

Brave men rejoice in adversity, just as brave soldiers triumph in war.

If we are marked to die, we are enough to do our country loss; and if to live, the fewer men, the greater share of honor.

Man alone is born crying, lives complaining, and dies disappointed.

The human race is a race of cowards; and I am not only marching in that procession but carrying a banner.

The law of sacrifice is uniform throughout the world. To be effective it demands the sacrifice of the bravest and the most spotless.

Pessimists are the people who have no hope for themselves or for others. Pessimists are also people who think the human race is beneath their notice, that they’re better than other human beings.

So far is it from being true that men are naturally equal, that no two people can be half an hour together, but one shall acquire an evident superiority over the other.

One cannot violate the promptings of one’s nature without having that nature recoil upon itself.

If there were in the world today any large number of people who desired their own happiness more than they desired the unhappiness of others, we could have a paradise in a few years.

Of course, when I say that human nature is gentleness, it is not 100 percent so. Every human being has that nature, but there are many people acting against their nature, being false.

Stupidity has a knack of getting its way.

Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also by the abuse of power.

Lot’s wife, of course, was told not to look back where all those people and their homes had been. But she did look back, and I love her for that, because it was so human.

I draw from the Absurd three consequences: my revolt, my liberty, my passion.

Learned Institutions ought to be favorite objects with every free people. They throw that light over the public mind which is the best security against crafty and dangerous encroachments on the public liberty.

The bravest person I’ve ever met was a young boy going through massive amounts of treatment for a very rare, complex and unpleasant disease. I last saw him at a Discworld convention, where he chose to take part in a game as an assassin. He died not long afterwards, and I wish I had his fortitude and sense of style.

Politeness is to human nature what warmth is to wax.

Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of readiness to die.

There can be no liberty unless there is economic liberty.

It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this.

If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in government to the utmost.

Some men have a necessity to be mean, as if they were exercising a faculty which they had to partially neglect since early childhood.

As pessimistic as I am about the nature of human beings and our capacity for atrocity and malevolence and betrayal and laziness and inertia, and all those things, I think we can transcend all that and set things straight.

The only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government strong enough to protect the interests of the people, and a people strong enough and well enough informed to maintain its sovereign control over the goverment.

It’s human nature to not say everything that’s on your mind at the time you think it. Because we fear saying something that people will laugh at, people will think is dumb. We’re afraid of being embarrassed.

It is a fact that cannot be denied: the wickedness of others becomes our own wickedness because it kindles something evil in our own hearts.

A lot of people ask me when I do a stunt, ‚Jackie, are you scared?‘ Of course I’m scared. I’m not Superman.

As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed.

It disturbs me no more to find men base, unjust, or selfish than to see apes mischievous, wolves savage, or the vulture ravenous.

The human animal cannot be trusted for anything good except en masse. The combined thought and action of the whole people of any race, creed or nationality, will always point in the right direction.

If you’re in favour of any policy – reform, revolution, stability, regression, whatever – if you’re at least minimally moral, it’s because you think it’s somehow good for people. And good for people means conforming to their fundamental nature.

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?

Man is not free unless government is limited.

The valiant never taste of death but once.

A University should be a place of light, of liberty, and of learning.

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

Mandela’s heroism is the heroism of a man who suffered so badly for what he thought of as freedom. And yet when he had the upper hand he has this incredible self-control and these incredible leadership qualities.

I sometimes wish I were suffering in a good cause, or risking my life for the good of others, instead of just being a gravely endangered patient.

I have resolved on an enterprise that has no precedent and will have no imitator. I want to set before my fellow human beings a man in every way true to nature; and that man will be myself.

Facts, like people, want to be free – and when they’re free, liberty is usually around the corner.

No one is so brave that he is not disturbed by something unexpected.

Man seems to be capable of great virtues but not of small virtues; capable of defying his torturer but not of keeping his temper.

Most people want security in this world, not liberty.

I think the really good mountaineer is the man with the technical ability of the professional and with the enthusiasm and freshness of approach of the amateur.

The effect of power and publicity on all men is the aggravation of self, a sort of tumor that ends by killing the victim’s sympathies.

Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.