“High society is for those who have stopped working and no longer have anything important to do.”

We came to America, either ourselves or in the persons of our ancestors, to better the ideals of men, to make them see finer things than they had seen before, to get rid of the things that divide and to make sure of the things that unite.

A conservative is someone who makes no changes and consults his grandmother when in doubt.

Has justice ever grown in the soil of absolute power? Has not justice always come from the … heart and spirit of men who resist power?

To fight, you must be brutal and ruthless, and the spirit of ruthless brutality will enter into the very fibre of national life.

At every crisis in one’s life, it is absolute salvation to have some sympathetic friend to whom you can think aloud without restraint or misgiving.

Any man that resists the present tides that run in the world, will find himself thrown upon a shore so high and barren that it will seem he has been separated from his human kind forever.

When I give a man an office, I watch him carefully to see whether he is swelling or growing.

The right is more precious than peace.

We are citizens of the world. The tragedy of our times is that we do not know this.

It is a fearful thing to lead this great peaceful people into war, into the most terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilizationitself seeming to be in the balance. But the right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things we have always carried closest to our hearts.

A man may be defeated by his own secondary successes.

What is the use of voting? We know that the machines of both parties are subsidized by the same persons, and therefore it is useless to turn in either direction.

I do not want a government that will take care of me, I want a government that will make other men take their hands off me so I can take care of myself.

I would never read a book if it were possible for me to talk half an hour with the man who wrote it.

Progressiveness means not standing still when everything else is moving.

The seed of revolution is repression.

The political core of any movement for freedom in the society has to have the political imperative to protect free speech.

Society knows perfectly well how to kill a man and has methods more subtle than death.

I think the teaching profession contributes more to the future of our society than any other single profession.

To understand how any society functions you must understand the relationship between the men and the women.

The scourge of injustice in our society must be overcome. We are united in the struggle for justice as we turn towards the bright light of truth and the warm embrace of reconciliation.

In a racist society it is not enough to be non-racist, we must be anti-racist.

Never needed acceptance from all you outsiders.

Society and loved ones will feed you exactly what you want to hear rather than what you need to hear.