“To all general purposes we have uniformly been one people each individual citizen everywhere enjoying the same national rights, privileges, and protection.”

I have thought it my duty to exhibit things as they are, not as they ought to be.

Nobody expects to trust his body overmuch after the age of fifty.

A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one.

The voice of the people has been said to be the voice of God; and, however generally this maxim has been quoted and believed, it is not true to fact. The people are turbulent and changing, they seldom judge or determine right.

Here, sir, the people govern; here they act by their immediate representatives.

Dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people than under the forbidden appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government.

Vigor of government is essential to the security of liberty.

There are seasons in every country when noise and impudence pass current for worth; and in popular commotions especially, the clamors of interested and factious men are often mistaken for patriotism.

Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of man will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.

You should not have taken advantage of my sensibility to steal into my affections without my consent.

Give all the power to the many, they will oppress the few. Give all the power to the few, they will oppress the many.

Unless your government is respectable, foreigners will invade your rights; and to maintain tranquillity, it must be respectable – even to observe neutrality, you must have a strong government.

I always feel how necessary you are to me. But when you are absent, I become still more sensible of it and look around in vain for that satisfaction which you alone can bestow.

Men are reasoning rather than reasonable animals.

Let us recollect that peace or war will not always be left to our option; that however moderate or unambitious we may be, we cannot count upon the moderation, or hope to extinguish the ambition of others.

Who talks most about freedom and equality? Is it not those who hold the bill of rights in one hand and a whip for affrighted slaves in the other?

If there’s a silver bullet in the battle to recapture Albany, it is the re-engagement of our citizens. This capital has become a physical metaphor for the isolation and alienation of our people.

The American people, North and South, went into the [Civil] war as citizens of their respective states, they came out as subjects … what they thus lost they have never got back.

The health of a democratic society may be measured by the quality of functions performed by private citizens.

Of all the treasures a state can possess, the human lives of its citizens are for us the most precious.

I have dual citizenship.

…International education cannot be the work of one country. It is the responsibility and promise of all nations. It calls for free exchange and full collaboration…The knowledge of our citizens is one treasure which grows only when it is shared.

Education is the key to opportunity in our society, and the equality of educational opportunity must be the birthright of every citizen.

Justice requires us to remember that when any citizen denies his fellow, saying, ‘His color is not mine,’ or ‘His beliefs are strange and different,’ in that moment he betrays America, though his forebears created this nation.