I know no class of my fellowmen, however just, enlightened, and humane, which can be wisely and safely trusted absolutely with the liberties of any other class. |
To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker. |
Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one’s thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down. |
Any one having a white face, and being so disposed, could stop us, and subject us to examination. ... When I get there [in Pennsylvania], I shall not be required to have a pass; I can travel without being disturbed. |
... and in thinking of my life, I almost forgot my liberty. |
Let us render the tyrant no aid; let us not hold the light by which he can trace the footprints of our flying brother. |
Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are people who want crops without ploughing the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning; they want the ocean without the roar of its many waters. The struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, or it may be both. But it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand; it never has and it never will. |
Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will. Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue till they have resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they suppress. |
The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous. |
Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want rain without thunder and lightning. |
What is possible for me is possible for you. |
Find out just what the people will submit to and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. |
To educate a man is to unfit him to be a slave. |
He who would be free must strike the first blow. |
