“Ancestors do not mean so much. The rebel who succeeds generally makes it easier for the posterity that follows him; so these descendants are usually contented and smug and soft. Rebels are made from life, not ancestors.”

Eugene V. Debs has always been one of my heroes.

No man is a good citizen, a good neighbor, a good friend, or a good man just because he obeys the law. The intrinsic worth is determined mainly by the intrinsic make-up.

Liberty is the most jealous and exacting mistress that can beguile the brain and soul of man.

I have lived my life, and I have fought my battles, not against the weak and the poor – anybody can do that – but against power, against injustice, against oppression, and I have asked no odds from them, and I never shall.

If you lose the power to laugh, you lose the power to think.

It must always be remembered that all laws are naturally and inevitably evolved by the strongest force in a community, and in the last analysis made for the protection of the dominant class.

The trouble with law is lawyers.

There is no such crime as a crime of thought; there are only crimes of action.

The nation that would to-day disarm its soldiers and turn its people to the paths of peace would accomplish more to its building up than by all the war taxes wrong from its hostile and unwilling serfs.

I had grown tired of standing in the lean and lonely front line facing the greatest enemy that ever confronted man — public opinion.

The purpose of life is to live it.

Religion is the belief in future life and in God. I don’t believe in either.

There is a soul of truth in error; there is a soul of good in evil.

It is just as often a great misfortune to be the child of the rich as it is to be the child of the poor. Wealth has its misfortunes. Too much, too great opportunity and advantage given to a child has its misfortunes.

Can any rational person believe that the Bible is anything but a human document?

If a man is happy in America, it is considered he is doing something wrong.

Indeed, the crowning proof of their valour and their strength is that they keep up their superiority without harm to others.

Some people are your relatives but others are your ancestors, and you choose the ones you want to have as ancestors. You create yourself out of those values.

So as you go into battle, remember your ancestors and remember your descendants.

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.

People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors.

I know my father and my mother, but beyond that I cannot go. My ancestry is blurred.

I am the messenger of my ancestors.

My spirit is sad – I carry the tears of my ancestors.