All quotes

The position of the Negro today in America is the tragic but inevitable consequence of centuries of unequal treatment.

Thus, even as the colonists embarked on a course to secure their own freedom and equality, they ensured perpetuation of the system that deprived a whole race of those rights.

Well sped, my boy, before the world had dubbed your ambition insolence, had held your ideals unattainable, and taught you to cringe and bow.

One ever feels his two-ness,--an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings

Extreme altruism is no better and no nobler than extreme selfishness; both are mistakes.

Marshall's statement cannot be read to mean in any sense that a President is above the law

The public officials charged with executing the law might do injustice in heated controversy through unconscious pride of opinion and obstinacy of conclusion.

We should make every effort to prevent humiliating and degrading prohibition against any of our citizens wishing temporarily to sojourn in foreign countries because of race or religion.

The calculated killing of a human being by the State involves, by its very nature, a denial of the executed person's humanity.

a punishment must not by its severity be degrading to human dignity

that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials

If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment , it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.

We do not consecrate the flag by punishing its desecration, for in doing so we dilute the freedom that this cherished emblem represents.

Convince me that liberty is not the inalienable birthright of every human being, of whatever complexion or clime, and I will give that instrument to the consuming fire.

Convince me that one man may rightfully make another man his slave, and I will no longer subscribe to the Declaration of Independence.

Every slave is a stolen man; every slaveholder is a man-stealer.

Hence, I cannot but regard oppression in every form--and most of all, that which turns a man into a thing--with indignation and abhorrence.

Show me the government which can be maintained only by destroying the rights of a portion of the people; and you will indicate the duty of openly revolting against it.

Slavery cannot bear one ray of light, or the slightest criticism.

What you demand for yourselves, in virtue of your manhood, I demand for the enslaved at the South, on the same ground.

Arbitration is the true method of settlement of international as well as local or individual differences.

We want no wars of conquest; we must avoid the temptation of territorial aggression.

All other work but this is worthless; it is slaves’ work—mere toiling to live, that we may live to toil.

Free speech--the glory of our system of government--should not be sacrificed on anything less than plain and objective proof of danger that the evil advocated is imminent.

The right to speak freely and to promote diversity of ideas and programs is therefore one of the chief distinctions that sets us apart from totalitarian regimes.