All quotes

ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country

No body can give more power than he has himself; and he that cannot take away his own life, cannot give another power over it.

The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but to have only the law of nature for his rule.

It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.

Surely the State has no right to cleanse public debate to the point where it is grammatically palatable to the most squeamish among us.

The constitutional right of free expression is powerful medicine in a society as diverse and populous as ours.

The mountains are calling and I must go, and I will work on while I can, studying incessantly.

A good despotism is an altogether false ideal, which practically (except as a means to some temporary purpose) becomes the most senseless and dangerous of chimeras.

Between subjection to the will of others and the virtues of self-help and self-government there is a natural incompatibility.

One of the benefits of freedom is that under it the ruler can not pass by the people's minds, and amend their affairs for them without amending them.

One person with a belief is a social power equal to ninety-nine who have only interests.

The subjection of women to men being a universal custom, any departure from it quite naturally appears unnatural.

In regard to foreign nations, the groundwork of my policy will be justice on our part to all, submitting to injustice from none.

There was a Care on my Mind so to pass my Time, that nothing might hinder me from the most steady Attention to the Voice of the true Shepherd.

I don’t like work—no man does—but I like what is in the work—the chance to find yourself.

Work is love made visible.

You are good when you strive to give of yourself.

The guarantee of equal protection cannot mean one thing when applied to one individual and something else when applied to a person of another color.

Pride in one's work is aroused as soon as work is functionalized. The moment a man has something to do that he likes to do, and can do well, he takes pride in it.

The observed worker should be made to realize the purpose and importance of the measurement.

These possibilities of mental development are still further increased when the man makes his own records. This leads to closer attention, to more interest in the work, and to a realization of the man as to what the record really means, and what value it represents.

Denial of the right to experiment may be fraught with serious consequences to the nation.

It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.

In rest you go beyond these limits, and beyond what is enough; but in action you do not fill the measure, and remain well within your powers.

the mind can convert and change everything that impedes its activity into matter for its action; hindrance in its work becomes its real help, and every obstruction makes for its progress