“A really intelligent nation might be held together by far stronger forces than are derived from the purely gregarious instincts. A nation need not be a mob of slaves, clinging to one another through fear, and for the most part incapable of self-government, and begging to be led; but it might consist of vigorous self-reliant men, knit to one another by innumerable ties, into a strong, tense, and elastic organisation.”

1850s, Speech at Peoria, Illinois (1854)
Context: "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread." At the hazard of being thought one of the fools of this quotation, I meet that argument — I rush in — I take that bull by the horns. I trust I understand and truly estimate the right of self-government. My faith in the proposition that each man should do precisely as he pleases with all which is exclusively his own lies at the foundation of the sense of justice there is in me. I extend the principle to communities of men as well as to individuals. I so extend it because it is politically wise, as well as naturally just: politically wise in saving us from broils about matters which do not concern us. Here, or at Washington, I would not trouble myself with the oyster laws of Virginia, or the cranberry laws of Indiana. The doctrine of self-government is right, — absolutely and eternally right, — but it has no just application as here attempted. Or perhaps I should rather say that whether it has such application depends upon whether a negro is not or is a man. If he is not a man, in that case he who is a man may as a matter of self-government do just what he pleases with him.
But if the negro is a man, is it not to that extent a total destruction of self-government to say that he too shall not govern himself. When the white man governs himself, that is self-government; but when he governs himself and also governs another man, that is more than self-government — that is despotism. If the negro is a man, why then my ancient faith teaches me that "all men are created equal," and that there can be no moral right in connection with one man's making a slave of another.

Source: In his essay Illusions, quoted in Gokhale, Balkrishna Govind India in the American mind Bombay: PopularPrakashan, 1992.

Unsourced

"Ballad of the Double-Soul"
The Certain Hour (1916)
Context: For this is the song of the double-soul, distortedly two in one, —
Of the wearied eyes that still behold the fruit ere the seed be sown,
And derive affright for the nearing night from the light of the noontide sun.
For one that with hope in the morning set forth, and knew never a fear,
They have linked with another whom omens bother; and he whispers in one's ear.
And one is fain to be climbing where only angels have trod,
But is fettered and tied to another's side who fears that it might look odd.

Source: Resist Not Evil (1904), p. 40

Opening address, Pacific Islands Political Studies Association (PIPSA), 24 November 2005.

Source: Excerpts of Martial law speech (14 December 1981)

Source: On the Steel Breeze (2013), Chapter 22 (p. 253)