Jennifer Stam > Jennifer's Quotes

“The American people have this to learn: that where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob, and degrade them, neither person nor property is safe.”
― Frederick Douglass

“This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.”
― Frederick Douglass

“But I should be false in the earliest sentiments of my soul, if I suppressed the opinion. I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and incur my own abhorrence.”
― Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both.”
― Frederick Douglass

“If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin.”
― Charles Darwin, Voyage of the Beagle

“When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty.”
― Thomas Jefferson

“The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”
― Thomas Jefferson

“Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.”
― Thomas Jefferson

“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.”
― Thomas Jefferson

“I hope that we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.”
― Thomas Jefferson, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Retirement Series, Volume 10: 1 May 1816 to 18 January 1817

“An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens.”
― Thomas Jefferson

“He who knows best knows how little he knows.”
― Thomas Jefferson

“Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor.”
― Thomas Jefferson

“Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong.”
― Thomas Jefferson

“The executive power in our government is not the only, perhaps not even the principal, object of my solicitude. The tyranny of the legislature is really the danger most to be feared, and will continue to be so for many years to come. The tyranny of the executive power will come in its turn, but at a more distant period.”
― Thomas Jefferson, Democracy in America

“A coward is much more exposed to quarrels than a man of spirit.”
― Thomas Jefferson

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., I Have a Dream: Writings and Speeches That Changed the World

“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“Forgiveness is not an occasional act, it is a constant attitude.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge, which is power; religion gives man wisdom, which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values. The two are not rivals.”
― Martin Luther King, Jr

“As my sufferings mounted I soon realized that there were two ways in which I could respond to my situation -- either to react with bitterness or seek to transform the suffering into a creative force. I decided to follow the latter course.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“People fail to get along because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don't know each other; they don't know each other because they have not communicated with each other.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“the time is always right to do the right thing”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“Not only will we have to repent for the sins of bad people; but we also will have to repent for the appalling silence of good people.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.”
― Martin Luther King, Jr