“At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed.”

I didn’t know I was a slave until I found out I couldn’t do the things I wanted.

We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and the future.

What upon Earth is the matter with the American people? Do they really covet the world’s ridicule as well as their own social and political ruin?

Right is of no sex, Truth is of no color, God is the Father of us all, and we are all Brethren.

Immense wealth, and its lavish expenditure, fill the great house with all that can please the eye, or tempt the taste. Here, appetite, not food, is the great desideratum.

Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them.

We are free to say that in respect to political rights, we hold women to be justly entitled to all we claim for men.

My hopes were never brighter than now.

Education means emancipation. It means light and liberty. It means the uplifting of the soul of man into the glorious light of truth, the light by which men can only be made free.

I do not think much of the good luck theory of self-made men. It is worth but little attention and has no practical value.

You have to take power. No one gives it.

Praying for freedom never did me any good til I started praying with my feet.

A great man, tender of heart, strong of nerve, boundless patience and broadest sympathy, with no motive apart from his country.

Some know the value of education by having it. I knew its value by not having it.

Our destiny is largely in our hands.

People might not get all they work for in this world, but they must certainly work for all they get.

Many argue; not many converse.

You load your words as I bare my chest, and this will be the most beautiful death.

Jokes of the proper kind, properly told, can do more to enlighten questions of politics, philosophy, and literature than any number of dull arguments.

To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.

To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason, and whose philosophy consists in holding humanity in contempt, is like administering medicine to the dead, or endeavoring to convert an atheist by scripture.

A man lives by believing something: not by debating and arguing about many things.

It’s unarguable that the right shoes can really add elegance to an outfit and to the person who’s wearing them. Take a pair of high heels, for instance. Suddenly, you’re looking taller, shoulders back, body curved.

When heart speaks and heart listens, harmony is produced. When head talks and head listens, argument is produced.