People might not get all they work for in this world, but they must certainly work for all they get.

If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet renounce controversy are people who want crops without ploughing the ground.

No man can be truly free whose liberty is dependent upon the thought, feeling and action of others, and who has himself no means in his own hands for guarding, protecting, defending and maintaining that liberty.

If the negro knows enough to fight for his country he knows enough to vote; if he knows enough to pay taxes for the support of the government, he knows enough to vote; if he knows as much when sober, as an Irishman knows when drunk, he knows enough to vote.

Though they come as the waves come, we shall be all the stronger if we receive them as friends and give them a reason for loving our country and our institutions.

All great qualities are never found in any one man or in any one race. The whole of humanity, like the whole of everything else, is ever greater than a part. Men only know themselves by knowing others, and contact is essential to this knowledge.

If nothing is expected of a people, that people will find it difficult to contradict that expectation.

Opportunity is important but exertion is indispensable.

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.

The Constitution itself. Its language is 'we the people'. Not we the white people, not even we the citizens, not we the privileged class, not we the high, not we the low, but we the people.