All quotes

When this corrupting passion once takes possession of the human mind, like the love of gold it becomes insatiable.

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

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

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.

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.

The quality of advocacy turns on the depth of the conviction; and government has no power to invade that sanctuary of belief and conscience.

Otherwise, free speech which is the strength of the Nation will be the cause of its destruction.

The great Government we loved has too often been made use of for private and selfish purposes, and those who used it had forgotten the people.

Only it seems to me a grievous error in a ruler to quarrel with all his subjects at once.

was it not obvious that flocks and herds were more ready to obey their keepers than men their rulers

As indispensable to the preservation of our system of self-government, the independence of the representatives of the States and the people is guaranteed by the Constitution, and they owe no responsibility to any human power but their constituents.

I view it as an extreme measure, to be resorted to only in extraordinary cases, as where it may become necessary to defend the executive against the encroachments of the legislative power or to prevent hasty and inconsiderate or unconstitutional legislation.

The Executive has authority to recommend (not to dictate) measures to Congress.

Powerful people maneuver for position and worry endlessly about who is in and who is out, who is up and who is down, forgetting those people whose toil and sweat sends us here and pays our way.

Tyrannous exaction brings on servile concealment; and that again calls forth tyrannous coercion.

The love of protecting too often degenerates into downright tyranny.

A man who is morose or violent to his equals, is sure to be one who has lived among inferiors, whom he could frighten or worry into submission.

Her power often gives her what she has no right to, but does not enable her to assert her own rights.

If ever any system of privilege and enforced subjection had its yoke tightly riveted on the necks of those who are kept down by it, this has.

The world does not count races and nations that have nothing.

Every corps is a chain of despots, who, submitting and tyrannizing without exercising their reason, become dead weights of vice and folly on the community.