It is the nature of slavery to render its victims so abject that at last, fearing to be free, they multiply their own chains. You can liberate a freeman, but you cannot liberate a slave.

The revolt against freedom, which can be traced back so far, is associated with a revolt against reason that [gives] sentiment primacy to evaluate actions and experiences according to the subjective emotions with which they are associated.

For a few ticks of the clock I am here, uncomprehending, attempting to make some record or memorial of this eternal passage, like a traveler in a strange country through which he is being hurried on a schedule not of his making and for a purpose he does not understand.

It is almost impossible to convince people who are under the influence of ideological bigotry that whose whom they regard as belonging to the enemy species are human.

Faith is one of those words that connotes, however irrationally, some kind of virtue in itself.

The prospective colonization of space responds, not to the particular problems of the American nation, or of any other nation, but to those of mankind as a whole... In an ideal view, such an undertaking by mankind as a whole would tend to divert it from its present preoccupation with international conflict, would tend to channel its energies into the pursuit of a great common purpose.

It is the nature of slavery to render its victims so abject that at last, fearing to be free, they multiply their own chains. You can liberate a freeman, but you cannot liberate a slave.