The claims of no people, according to established policy and usage, are respected by any nation, until they are presented in a national capacity.

Our elevation must be the result of self-efforts and work of our own hands. No other human power can accomplish it. If we but determine it shall be so, it will be so.

The rights of no oppressed people have ever yet been obtained by a voluntary act of justice on the part of the oppressors.

Let us have an education, that shall practically develop our thinking faculties and manhood; and then, and only then, shall we be able to vie with our oppressors, go where we may . . .

Every people should be the originators of their own destiny, the projectors of their own schemes, and creators of the events that lead to their destiny -- the consummation of their own desires.

A serpent is a serpent, and none the less a viper, because it is nestled in the bosom of an honest-hearted man.

It is only in the mountains that I can fully appreciate my existence as a man in America, and my own native land

Barely halfway back, exhaustion sets in. What if I don’t make it? An edge of panic gets intercepted by a calmer inner voice: Look behind you.

I feel obligated to tell you that adventures are, on a whole, stunningly bad ideas, best avoided at all costs.

Learn the principle, abide by the principle, and dissolve the principle. In short, enter a mold without being caged in it. Obey the principle without being bound by it. Learn, master, and achieve.

I'm tired of people screaming about price and forgetting about the content.

In hell, the Devil is God.

I wish either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about when they begot me.

Encouragement is food for the heart, and every heart is a hungry heart.

The human mind treats a new idea the same way the body treats a strange protein; it rejects it.

Intellectualism, though by no means confined to doubters, is often the sole piety of the skeptic.