“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.”

Oppression makes a wise man mad.

What is possible for me is possible for you.

A man is worked upon by what he works on. He may carve out his circumstances, but his circumstances will carve him out as well.

I had as well be killed running as die standing.

The marriage institution cannot exist among slaves, and one sixth of the population of democratic America is denied it’s privileges by the law of the land.

Every one of us should be ashamed to be free while his brother is a slave.

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

Our community belongs to us and whether it is mean or majestic, whether arrayed in glory or covered in shame, we cannot but share its character and destiny.

We may explain success mainly by one word and that word is work.

A battle lost or won is easily described, understood, and appreciated, but the moral growth of a great nation requires reflection, as well as observation, to appreciate it.

Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.

Nature has given woman the same powers, and subjected her to the same earth, breathes the same air, subsists on the same food, physical, moral, mental and spiritual. She has, therefore, an equal right with man, in all efforts to obtain and maintain a perfect existence.

The white man’s happiness cannot be purchased by the black man’s misery.

The thing worse than rebellion is the thing that causes rebellion.

A man’s character always takes its hue, more or less, from the form and color of things about him.

A man’s rights rest in three boxes: the ballot box, the jury box, and the cartridge box.

Impatience and stupidity claim more victims than any weapon.

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

For all the claims that we now live in a society free of racism, the tragedies that presently overwhelm us are a stiff dose of reality.

It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane.

If absolute truth belongs to anyone in this world, it certainly does not belong to the man or party that claims to possess it.

Whoever claims the right to redistribute the wealth produced by others is claiming the right to treat human beings as chattel.

The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.

I have noticed even people who claim everything is predestined, and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road.