“The true source of our suffering has been our timidity. We have been afraid to think... Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write... Let it be known that British liberties are not the grants of princes or parliaments.”
“Facts are stubborn things, and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictums of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”
“If political parties teach and train their people to have humanity, integrity, honesty, to have moral ,values and good characteristics. Instead of teaching them only, how to fight, to kill,to steal and how to be corrupt. Today we would be having a great country.”
“If you think the legal system is going to uphold your legal rights, think again!”
“Love is the fulfilment of the law of life.”
“My first victory as a citizen, I stood by the law against the injustice”
“Oklahoma law still declares the Communist Party ‘illegal and not entitled to any rights, privileges or immunities,’ and makes it ‘unlawful for such Party to…exist, function or operate in the state of Oklahoma. And the criminal syndicalism law that ‘justified’ the book trials remains in effect, ever at the ready for the next set of zealots more concerned about imagined threats to social order than to violations of civil liberties.”
“Although most of the book trial defendants eventually broke with the Communist Party…they never abandoned a visceral commitment to reduce poverty, fight racism and advocate social justice that bound them together in the first place….Oklahoma officials were too philosophically and culturally blindered to see any altruism or patriotism in the nonviolent behaviors of the book trial defendants; all they could see was conspiracy and somehow the managed to find ‘evidence’ of that conspiracy in books that were also on the shelves in public and academic libraries throughout the country… (Books On Trial)”
“In his closing argument, prosecutor Lewis Morris noted…much Communist literature recommended an alliance between poor whites and blacks to effect economic improvement, including one pamphlet that suggested five million blacks were living in a virtual hell on Dixie plantations. ‘You go down there appealing to bias and passion and prejudice for the Negro people, and you nominate one of them for vice president of the United States of America.’ Defense attorneys objected several times to Morris’s courtroom behavior….for two hours Morris harangued the jury and at the end connected the issue of race once more… (Books on Trial)”
“You cannot have a good social system when you find yourself low in the scale of political rights nor can you be fit to exercise political rights and privileges, unless your social system is based on reason and justice. You cannot have a good economic system when your social arrangements are imperfect. If your religious ideas are low and grovelling, you cannot succeed in the social, economic or political spheres. This inter-dependence is not an accident but the law of our nature.”
“We don t require a Draft Law for our own safety”
“Preambule: Atas segala tuduhan yang belum dipastikan dengan bukti sah, seorang tertuduh berhak mendapatkan pembelaan dari orang yang dipercaya sehingga tetap tidak kehilangan haknya atas harapan untuk diselamatkan.”
“Pasal 4: Bahwa pihak yang berutang budi selayaknya memenuhi kewajiban terhadap pihak yang berpiutang budi, paling tidak sekurang-kurangnya diganti dengan balasan yang setara.”
“Pasal 6: Dalam hal ini, setiap pilihan yang telah disepakati tetap memiliki peluang timbulnya kehadiran pihak yang tidak pernah terduga oleh para pihak utama.”
“The police are the public face of government corruption.”
“The whole book is about how we should try to find rules other people can t reasonably reject, and then he ends it by saying, The search for how to find these rules will go on forever. I proposed a rule that Chidis shouldn t be allowed to leave because it would make Eleanors sad. And I could do this forever, zip you around the universe showing you cool stuff... and I d still never find the justification for getting you to stay. Because it s a selfish rule. I owe it to you to let you go.”
“Pasal 1:Setiap orang bertanggung jawab dalam mempertahankan keseimbangan harinya masing-masing, baik dengan cara menerima ataupun menolak perkara hidup yang diajukan tanpa dipengaruhi paksaan dan ancaman dari pihak lain.”