Quote #10

I know now that there are things for which I am prepared to die. I am willing to die for political freedom; for the right to give my loyalty to ideals above a nation and above a class; for the right to teach my child what I think to be the truth; for the right to explore such knowledge as my brains can penetrate; for the right to love where my mind and heart admire, without reference to some dictator's code to tell me what the national canons on the matter are; for the right to work with others of like mind; for a society that seems to me becoming to the dignity of the human race. (1937)

More from Dorothy Thompson

  1. Fear grows in darkness; if you think there's a bogeyman around, turn on the light.
  2. 'Inventive man' has invented nothing- nothing 'from scratch.' If he has produced a machine that in motion overcomes the law of gravity, he …
  3. Disillusion comes only to the illusioned. One cannot be disillusioned of what one never put faith in.
  4. It is not the fact of liberty but the way in which liberty is exercised that ultimately determines whether liberty itself survives.
  5. Courage, it would seem, is nothing less than the power to overcome danger, misfortune, fear, injustice, while continuing to affirm inwardly…
  6. No people ever recognize their dictator in advance. He never stands for election on the platform of dictatorship. He always represents hims…
  7. Can one preach at home inequality of races and nations and advocate abroad good-will towards all men?
  8. Of all forms of government and society, those of free men and women are in many respects the most brittle. They give the fullest freedom fo…

All Dorothy Thompson quotes