No man is great enough or wise enough for any of us to surrender our destiny to. The only way in which anyone can lead us is to restore to us the belief in our own guidance.
The state can be and has often been in the course of history the main source of mischief and disaster.
Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.
These are the times that try men's souls.
Legitimate use of violence can only be that which is required in self-defense.
All initiation of force is a violation of someone else's rights, whether initiated by an individual or the state, for the benefit of an individual or group of individuals, even if it's supposed to be for the benefit of another individual or group of individuals.
The most important element of a free society, where individual rights are held in the highest esteem, is the rejection of the initiation of violence.
The best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas.
A lawyer with his briefcase can steal more than a hundred men with guns.
Man is not free unless government is limited.
If you are going to sin, sin against God, not the bureaucracy. God will forgive you but the bureaucracy won't.
This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer.
We can't all be heroes, because somebody has to sit on the curb and applaud when they go by.
Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons.
Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex... It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal.
Apparently, a democracy is a place where numerous elections are held at great cost without issues and with interchangeable candidates.
God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it.
A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.
My opinions may have changed, but not the fact that I'm right.
These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it NOW, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.
The cry has been that when war is declared, all opposition should be hushed. A sentiment more unworthy of a free country could hardly be propagated.
To take what there is in life and use it, without waiting forever in vain for the preconceived, to dig deep into the actual and get something out of that; this, doubtless, is the right way to live.
On every question of construction (of the Constitution) let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit of the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.
If the fires of freedom and civil liberties burn low in other lands they must be made brighter in our own. If in other lands the press and books and literature of all kinds are censored we must redouble our efforts here to keep them free. If in other lands the eternal truths of the past are threatened by intolerance we must provide a safe place for their perpetuation.
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