History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.
I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.
Courage – a perfect sensibility of the measure of danger, and a mental willingness to endure it.
I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for that day.
We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.
The revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make it fall.
The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding go out to meet it.
The world we see that seems so insane is the result of a belief system that is not working. To perceive the world differently, we must be willing to change our belief system, let the past slip away, expand our sense of now, and dissolve the fear in our minds.
Forgiveness is a virtue of the brave.
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Don’t worry when you are not recognized, but strive to be worthy of recognition.
Purely historical thought is nihilistic; it wholeheartedly accepts the evil of history.
Nobody can have the consolations of religion or philosophy unless he has first experienced their desolations.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
First of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself – nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.
If we had a keen vision of all that is ordinary in human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow or the squirrel’s heart beat, and we should die of that roar which is the other side of silence.
If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.
Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence.
There is no history of how bad became better.
You can’t be neutral on a moving train.