“It is not what a lawyer tells me I may do; but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to do.”

There is nothing that God has judged good for us that He has not given us the means to accomplish, both in the natural and the moral world.

To complain of the age we live in, to murmur at the present possessors of power, to lament the past, to conceive extravagant hopes of the future, are the common dispositions of the greatest part of mankind.

If we command our wealth, we shall be rich and free; if our wealth commands us, we are poor indeed.

Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion.

All the forces of darkness need to succeed … is for the people to do nothing.

History is a pact between the dead, the living, and the yet unborn.

There is no safety for honest men, but by believing all possible evil of evil men, and by acting with promptitude, decision, and steadiness on that belief.

It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.

When you fear something, learn as much about it as you can. Knowledge conquers fear.

It is the nature of all greatness not to be exact.

Great men are never sufficiently shown but in struggles.

An event has happened, upon which it is difficult to speak, and impossible to be silent.

People must be taken as they are, and we should never try make them or ourselves better by quarreling with them.

In history, a great volume is unrolled for our instruction, drawing the materials of future wisdom from the past errors and infirmities of mankind.

We must all obey the great law of change. It is the most powerful law of nature.

A great empire and little minds go ill together.

A really great man is known by three signs: generosity in the design, humanity in the execution, moderation in success.

He who understands humanity seeks solitude.

So long as we live among men, let us cherish humanity.

Liberty, Humanity, Justice, Equality.

If I have advocated the cause of the Negro, it is not because I am a Negro, but because I am a man.

Love is divine, Love is the cause of humanity, Love is Hope. Love more to live more.

People are of two types, they are either your brothers in faith or your equals in humanity.

Humanity is in the highest degree irrational, so that there is no prospect of influencing it by reasonable arguments. Against prejudice one can do nothing.