Henry Ward Beecher Quotes

In the transition epoch, surely crimes will come. Did the seed of tyranny ever bear good fruit? And can you expect Liberty to undo in a moment what Oppression has been doing for ages?

The Occupy Wall Street project feels like a burning ember that might light the torch of justice and inflame our longing for freedom.

I suppose that is my central obsession. What we owe to society, what we owe to ourselves.

During my last voyage to America, I enjoyed the happiness of seeing that revolution completed, and, thinking of the one that would probably occur in France, I said in a speech to Congress, published everywhere except in the 'French Gazette,' 'May this revolution serve as a lesson to oppressors and as an example to the oppressed!'

Rights that do not flow from duty well performed are not worth having.

Disobey the rules; ask for more; leave your wretchedness behind; organize with your brothers and sisters; never accept the hand of fate.

We are in bondage to the law so that we may be free.

Institutions-government, churches, industries, and the like-have properly no other function than to contribute to human freedom; and in so far as they fail, on the whole, to perform this function, they are wrong and need reconstruction.

Anyone who takes it upon himself ... to break a bad law, thereby authorizes everyone else to break the good ones.

All power is a trust; that we are accountable for its exercise.

The compulsions of the law seem to have been provided for those only who require compulsions

We must liberate our concepts of justice, our laws and legal institutions from the bonds which hold a tight grip on us although they are incompatible with the needs of our century.

…we are confirmed in the opinion that the present age would be deficient in their duty to God, their posterity, and themselves if they do not establish an American republic

Rights! There are no rights whatever without corresponding duties.

Right therefore and obligation are, as logicians express it, correllative terms; one of these ideas necessarily supposes the other; and we cannot conceive a right without a corresponding obligation.

Gentlemen, since the settlement of that Constitution, now nearly two centuries ago, England has never experienced a revolution, though there is no country in which there has been so continuous and such considerable change. How is this? Because the wisdom of your forefathers placed the prize of supreme power without the sphere of human passions. Whatever the struggle of parties, whatever the strife of factions, whatever the excitement and exaltation of the public mind, there has always been something in this country round which all classes and parties could rally, representing the majesty of the law, the administration of justice, and involving, at the same time, the security for every man's rights and the fountain of honor.

It is time that we labored for the happiness of the people. Legislators who are to bring light and order into the world must pursue their course with inexorable tread, fearless and unswerving as the sun.

When each citizen submits himself to the authority of law he does not thereby decrease his independence or freedom, but rather increases it. By recognizing that he is a part of a larger body which is banded together for a common purpose, he becomes more than an individual, he rises to a new dignity of citizenship. Instead of finding himself restricted and confined by rendering obedience to public law, he finds himself protected and defended and in the exercise of increased and increasing rights.

Across the region, those rights that we take for granted are being claimed with joy by those who are prying loose the grip of an iron fist.

If you ask me what is at the core of what I write, it isn't about 'rights', it's about justice. Justice is a grand, beautiful, revolutionary idea.

It is reasonable that everyone who asks justice should do justice

Our privileges can be no greater than our obligations. The protection of our rights can endure no longer than the performance of our responsibilities.

Liberty and responsibility are inseparable.

Liberty is not a right but a duty.

What produces the general good is always terrible or seems bizarre when begun too soon. The Revolution must stop when it has perfected public happiness and liberty through the laws.