“I believe all war to be wholly wrong.”

“No charter of freedom will be worth looking at which does not ensure the same measure of freedom for the minorities as for the majority.”

“If what passed as nonviolence does not enable people to protect the honour of women, or if it does not enable women to protect their own honour, it is not nonviolence.”

“I have no secret methods. I know no diplomacy save that of truth. I have no weapon but non-violence.”

“I would beseech you not only to be pure beyond suspicion but I would ask you to combine with stainless purity, great wisdom and great ability.”

“Every actual State is corrupt. Good men must not obey the laws too well.”

“We have the means to change the laws we find unjust or onerous. We cannot, as citizens, pick and choose the laws we will or will not obey.”

“Civil disobedience is not only the natural right of a people, especially when they have no effective voice in their own Government, but that it is also a substitute for violence or armed rebellion.”

“In dealing with the State, we ought to remember that its institutions are not aboriginal, though they existed before we were born; that they are not superior to the citizen; that every one of them was once the act of a single man; every law and usage was a man's expedient to meet a particular case; that they all are imitable, all alterable; we may make as good; we may make better.”

“When fear enters the heart of a man at hearing the names of candidates and the reading of laws that are proposed, then is the State safe, but when these things are heard without regard, as above or below us, then is the Commonwealth sick or dead.”

“In the last analysis, my fellow country men, as we in America would be the first to claim, a people are responsible for the acts of their government.”

“Let me tell you, Cassius, you yourself are much condemned to have an itching palm.”

“Corruption wins not more than honesty.”

“They do not abuse the king that flatter him. For flattery is the bellows blows up sin; The thing the which is flattered, but a spark To which that blast gives heat and stronger glowing.”

“Every subject's duty is the Kings, but every subject's soul is his own.”

“What e'er thou art, act well thy part.”

“Give obedience where 'tis truly owed.”

“The State is a poor, good beast who means the best: it means friendly.”

“In dealing with the State, we ought to remember that its institutions are not aboriginal, though they existed before we were born; that they are not superior to the citizen; that every one of them was once the act of a single man; every law and usage was a man's expedient to meet a particular case; that they all are imitable, all alterable; we may make as good; we may make better.”

“This little world, this little state, this little commonwealth of our own.”