“To rob, to ravage, to murder, in their imposing language, are the arts of civil policy. When they have made the world a solitude, they call it peace.”

When the State is corrupt, then the laws are most multiplied.

The changeful change of circumstances. [Lat., Varia sors rerum.]

Even honor and virtue make enemies, condemning, as they do, their opposites by too close a contrast.

Even for learned men, love of fame is the last thing to be given up.

We see many who are struggling against adversity who are happy, and more although abounding in wealth, who are wretched.

Following Emporer Nero’s command, “Let the Christians be exterminated!:” . . . they [the Christians] were made the subjects of sport; they were covered with the hides of wild beasts and worried to death by dogs, or nailed to crosses or set fire to, and when the day waned, burned to serve for the evening lights.

There can never be a complete confidence in a power which is excessive.

Flatterers are the worst kind of enemies. [Lat., Pessimum genus inimicorum laudantes.]

No one in Germany laughs at vice, nor do they call it the fashion to corrupt and to be corrupted.

Fear is not in the habit of speaking truth; when perfect sincerity is expected, perfect freedom must be allowed; nor has anyone who is apt to be angry when he hears the truth any cause to wonder that he does not hear it.

They terrify lest they should fear.

That cannot be safe which is not honourable.

The desire of glory is the last infirmity cast off even by the wise.

Bottling up his malice to be suppressed and brought out with increased violence.

We accomplish more by prudence than by force. [Lat., Plura consilio quam vi perficimus.]

A shocking crime was committed on the unscrupulous initiative of few individuals, with the blessing of more, and amid the passive acquiescence of all.

They make solitude, which they call peace.

I can imagine no greater misfortune for a cultured people than to see in the hands of the rulers not only the civil, but also the religious power.

In the 1960s, the civil rights movement was about getting to know your culture, your history. I know all about my history.

Atheists have just as much civil right to teach atheism as Christians have to teach Christianity; agnostics have just as much right to teach agnosticism as Christians have to teach their religion.

What’s so civil about war anyway?

Civil disobedience has an honourable history, and when the urgency and moral clarity cross a certain threshold, then I think that civil disobedience is quite understandable, and it has a role to play.

We’ve talked more about civil rights after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 than we talked about it before 1964.

We have to put a stop to the idea that it is a part of everybody’s civil rights to say whatever he pleases.