“Educate your sons and daughters, send them to school, and show them that beside the cartridge box, the ballot box, and the jury box, you also have the knowledge box.”

It’s a poor rule that won’t work both ways.

The life of a nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous.

It is better to be part of a great whole than to be the whole of a small part.

Slaves sing most when they are most unhappy. The songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart; and he is relieved by them, only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears.

To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker.

Man’s greatness consists in his ability to do and the proper application of his powers to things needed to be done.

The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of earnest struggle.

You are not judged by the height you have risen, but from the depth you have climbed.

Intelligence is a great leveler here as elsewhere.

A man who will enslave his own blood, may not be safely relied on for magnamity.

The more I read, the more I was led to abhor and detest my enslavers.

He who would be free must strike the first blow.

It is not light that we need, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.

I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong.

Fortune may crowd a man’s life with fortunate circumstances and happy opportunities, but they will, as we all know, avail him nothing unless he makes a wise and vigorous use of them.

Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground.

There is a subset of Democrats who tend to mis-fill out ballots. The way you mark the ballot is like an S.A.T. – you fill in the circle. And the subset of people who tend to, like, put a check there instead, or an X, or fill it out wrong.

I think the elections have gone well, although there is so much insecurity in Iraq. So far during the counting of ballots.

If you have a government that is elected, they need to do the hard work – because if they don’t, they won’t be around the next time the ballot box is open.

If you have a government that is elected, they need to do the hard work — because if they don’t, they won’t be around the next time the ballot box is open.

First rule of politics: you can’t win unless you’re on the ballot. Second rule: If you run, you may lose. And, if you tie, you do not win.

The ballot is the only safety.

I will cut off this right arm of mine before I will ask for the ballot for the Negro and not for the woman.

It is downright mockery to talk to women of their enjoyment of the blessings of liberty while they are denied the use of the only means of securing them provided by this democratic-republican government: the ballot.