Echoes

All human laws are nourished by one divine law.

If it is not right do not do it; if it is not true do not say it.

Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.

There are many causes that I am prepared to die for but no causes that I am prepared to kill for.

When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?

Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.

Let the welfare of the people be the supreme law.

The law will never make men free; it is men who have got to make the law free.

Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe.

We must ever bear in mind that the great end in view is righteousness, justice as between man and man, nation and nation, the chance to lead our lives on a somewhat higher level, with a broader spirit of brotherly goodwill one for another. Peace is generally good in itself, but it is never the highest good unless it comes as the handmaid of righteousness; and it becomes a very evil thing if it serves merely as a mask for cowardice and sloth, or as an instrument to further the ends of despotism or anarchy. We despise and abhor the bully, the brawler, the oppressor, whether in private or public life, but we despise no less the coward and the voluptuary. No man is worth calling a man who will not fight rather than submit to infamy or see those that are dear to him suffer wrong. No nation deserves to exist if it permits itself to lose the stern and virile virtues; and this without regard to whether the loss is due to the growth of a heartless and all-absorbing commercialism, to prolonged indulgence in luxury and soft, effortless ease, or to the deification of a warped and twisted sentimentality.

There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.

Nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people.

The best laws cannot make a constitution work in spite of morals; morals can turn the worst laws to advantage. That is a commonplace truth, but one to which my studies are always bringing me back. It is the central point in my conception. I see it at the end of all my reflections.

The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time.

Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one.

Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect.

The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.

Virtue is serious business; everything else is farce.

In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing.

Virtue can only flourish amongst equals.

Liberty must at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker. But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood.

If anything is sacred the human body is sacred.

At the bottom of the heart of every human being, from earliest infancy until the tomb, there is something that goes on indomitably expecting, in the teeth of all experience of crimes committed, suffered, and witnessed, that good and not evil will be done to him. It is this above all that is sacred in every human being. The good is the only source of the sacred. There is nothing sacred except the good and what pertains to it.

…That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom.

Art is the symbol of the two noblest human efforts: to construct and to refrain from destruction.