“The history of liberty is a history of resistance.”

The princes among us are those who forget themselves and serve others.

Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence is a practical document for the use of practical men. It is not a thesis for philosophers, but a whip for tyrants; it is not a theory of government but a program of action.

I have always been among those who believed that the greatest freedom of speech was the greatest safety, because if a man is a fool, the best thing to do is to encourage him to advertise the fact by speaking.

Is there any man here or any woman, let me say is there any child here, who does not know that the seed of war in the modern world is industrial and commercial rivalry?

I believe in Democracy because it releases the energies of every human being.

As a matter of fact and experience, the more power is divided the more irresponsible it becomes.

The shadows that now lie dark upon our path will soon be dispelled and we shall walk with the light all about us if we but be true to ourselves.

What we seek is the reign of law, based upon the consent of the governed and sustained by the organized opinion of mankind.

All things come to him who waits – provided he knows what he is waiting for.

America cannot be an ostrich with its head in the sand.

It’s harder for a leader to be born in a palace than to be born in a cabin.

Big business is not dangerous because it is big, but because its bigness is an unwholesome inflation created by privileges and exemptions which it ought not to enjoy.

Liberty does not consist in mere declarations of the rights of man. It consists in the translation of those declarations into definite action.

We are not put into this world to sit still and know; we are put into it to act.

Excesses accomplish nothing. Disorder immediately defeats itself.

Segregation is not humiliating but a benefit.

As soon as histories are properly told there is no more need of romances.

Work hard, have fun and make history.

You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read.

I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am also so much more than that. So are we all.

There are more valid facts and details in works of art than there are in history books.

No matter what he does, every person on earth plays a central role in the history of the world. And normally he doesn’t know it.

History will judge us by the difference we make in the everyday lives of children.

It’s a struggle but that’s why we exist, so that another generation of Lesbians of color will not have to invent themselves, or their history, all over again.