Abraham Oakey Hall Quotes

In early America, taverns would sometimes ban political discussions in order to prevent the physical fights that would often break out when drinking men differed significantly about politics.

Religious and civil marriage to be replaced by free marriage. Adult men and women have the right to unite and separate as they please....With the abolition of the right of inheritance and the education of children assured by society, all the legal reasons for the irrevocability of marriage will disappear....In marriage, man and woman must enjoy absolute liberty.

People do not have the right to stir up riots and racial hatred, encourage mass hysteria or heap abuse on religion any more than they do to rob, rape, cheat or kill.

Civic murder … This free republic has killed five men for their opinions.

The growing tide of anti-Semitism shocks the conscious of everyone who values freedom, and the ugly, hateful acts particularly stain the character of democracies where liberty and religious freedom are supposed to be respected.

It did not come naturally; in fact, it would be difficult to conceive of any more dogmatic and less tolerant people than the first settlers on New England shores.

If you're gay and you can't hold hands, or you're black and you can't catch a taxi, or you're a woman and you can't go into the park, you are aware there's a menace. That's costly on a psychic level. The world should be striving to make all its members secure.

In current times, our moral uproar is best reserved for those who aspire to stone men or women to death, not those who consensually watch women - or men, for that matter - dance.

We need to fight violence and ignorance. It is true: when one strolls out, one sees women with scarves and men with beards. This has always been the case in Morocco. Morocco is built on tolerance.

In commendably seeking to protect freedom of speech, we must not lower our defences against the evil of racial and religious intolerance.

In many ways, my attachment to human freedom was completely compatible with my right to live freely as a homosexual.

Freedom of speech is always under attack by Fascist mentality, which exists in all parts of the world, unfortunately.

Censorship is to art as lynching is to justice.

For a long time in the United States, in practice if not in principle, only white, male, Protestants were born free and equal.

What began as a political protest turned into a class war and a racial pogrom.

To defend society from sex is no one's business. To defend it from officiousness is the duty of everyone who values freedom—or sex.

[Writing about America:] Persecution for opinion ... are still as common as women who have opinions.

Such is the boasted chivalry of the Land of Freedom, which has left its women to strive against tradition, prejudice, conservatism, self-interest, political power and in addition all the forces of corruption combined, to secure the privilege which was conferred upon vast numbers of men who never even demanded it and many of whom knew nothing of its significance after it was granted.

The press, many-tongued, surpassed itself in reproaches upon these women who had so far departed from their sphere as to speak in public.

A husband and wife ought to continue so long united as they love each other. Any law which should bind them to cohabitation for one moment after the decay of their affection, would be a most intolerable tyranny, and the most unworthy of toleration.

Heretics have been hated from the beginning of recorded time; they have been ostracized, exiled, tortured, maimed, and butchered; but it has generally proved impossible to smother them; and when it has not, the society that has succeeded has always declined.

Sometimes it’s a short step from banning to burning.

Democratic expression has been hijacked by ethnic discriminatory expression

Both the Army and the Navy are closed to our sex. Nor, again, are we allowed to be members of the Stock Exchange. Thus we cannot use either the pressure of force or the pressure of money. We cannot preach sermons or negotiate treaties. Then again, although it is true that we can write articles or send letters to the press, the control of the press … is entirely in the hands of your sex …

While women prefer to have a higher-earning power, men generally prefer to be the higher-earning partner in a relationship. This simple but profound difference … has powerful consequences for the so-called pay gap. If the pay gap were magically eliminated, … simple arithmetic suggests that half the women would be unable to find what they regard as a suitable mate. The pay gap helps to promote and sustain marriages.