At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst.

I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right, and stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong.

I love being in a courtroom.

Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.

He who knows, does not speak. He who speaks, does not know.

Only that thing is free which exists by the necessities of its own nature, and is determined in its actions by itself alone.

No people is wholly civilized where a distinction is drawn between stealing an office and stealing a purse.

Justice means minding one’s own business and not meddling with other men’s concerns.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Where there is no opposition to evil, it multiplies.

Deliver me from writers who say the way they live doesn’t matter. I’m not sure a bad person can write a good book, If art doesn’t make us better, then what on earth is it for.

A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business.

Justice is a temporary thing that must at last come to an end; but the conscience is eternal and will never die.

A right delayed is a right denied.

It’s not worth doing something unless you were doing something that someone, somewere, would much rather you weren’t doing.

The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.

When one travels around the world, one notices to what an extraordinary degree human nature is the same, whether in India or America, in Europe or Australia.

I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself, I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself now and then in finding a smoother pebble or prettier shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.

Depend upon it that if a man talks of his misfortunes there is something in them that is not disagreeable to him; for where there is nothing but pure misery there never is any recourse to the mention of it.

The last act is bloody, however pleasant all the rest of the play is: a little earth is thrown at last upon our head, and that is the end forever.

Illusion is the first of all pleasures.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

People who truly understand what is meant by self-reliance know they must live their lives by ethics rather than rules.

All men are by nature equal, made all of the same earth by one Workman; and however we deceive ourselves, as dear unto God is the poor peasant as the mighty prince.

The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.

When I do good I feel good, when I do bad I feel bad, and that’s my religion.

Everybody, to some extent, manipulates. Even children learn to cry when they want something. There are all kinds of subtle things we do to get others to follow our lead, not bother us, and so on.

The impossible often has a kind of integrity which the merely improbable lacks.

Truths and roses have thorns about them.

More law, less justice.

Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‚within the limits of the law‘ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.

Man has throughout the ages been seeking something beyond himself, beyond material welfare – something we call truth or God or reality, a timeless state – something that cannot be disturbed by circumstances, by thought or by human corruption.

Here’s the thing with me and the religious thing. This is the flat-out truth: I find the religiosity and philosophy in the music. I don’t find it anywhere else.

I look upon death to be as necessary to our constitution as sleep. We shall rise refreshed in the morning.

Those who have knowledge, don’t predict. Those who predict, don’t have knowledge.

First and last, what is demanded of genius is love of truth.

Why do I not seek some real good; one which I could feel, not one which I could display?

For one swallow does not make a summer, nor does one day; and so too one day, or a short time, does not make a man blessed and happy.

Man becomes his most creative during war.

Faith means belief in something concerning which doubt is theoretically possible.

To be safe at the expense of the liberty of other people is a difficult equation.

They tell us that suicide is the greatest piece of cowardice… that suicide is wrong; when it is quite obvious that there is nothing in the world to which every man has a more unassailable title than to his own life and person.

The reason we want to go on and on is because we live in an impoverished present.

My parents didn’t want to move to Florida, but they turned sixty and that’s the law.

Principles are guidelines for human conduct that are proven to have enduring, permanent value.

Information is not knowledge.

As soon as questions of will or decision or reason or choice of action arise, human science is at a loss.

Death may be the greatest of all human blessings.

And thou wilt give thyself relief, if thou doest every act of thy life as if it were the last.

What then in the last resort are the truths of mankind? They are the irrefutable errors of mankind.

Great bodies of people are never responsible for what they do.

Certain defects are necessary for the existence of individuality.

Thus so wretched is man that he would weary even without any cause for weariness… and so frivolous is he that, though full of a thousand reasons for weariness, the least thing, such as playing billiards or hitting a ball, is sufficient enough to amuse him.

Men are so necessarily mad, that not to be mad would amount to another form of madness.

I think that people just have this core desire to express who they are. And I think that’s always existed.

Some people will have to be afraid. Those who plunder the nation, deliver injustice, will have to feel scared of me. And I am not afraid of admitting this. Government cannot be so lenient that it forgives them.

Conscientious people are apt to see their duty in that which is the most painful course.

The most basic question is not what is best, but who shall decide what is best.

Seemingly, man has learned to live without God, preoccupied and indifferent toward Him and concerned only about material security and pleasure.

I don’t think there is any philosophy that suggests having polio is a good thing.

Mystery creates wonder and wonder is the basis of man’s desire to understand.