Mental slavery is mental death, and every man who has given up his intellectual freedom is the living coffin of his dead soul. – Robert Ingersoll, Individuality

The eager and often inconsiderate appeals of reformers and revolutionists are indispensable to counterbalance the inertia and fossilism marking so large a part of human institutions. – Walt Whitman, Democratic Vistas, 1871

To be dragged in the wake of the passive flock and to pass a hundred and one times beneath the shears of the shepherd, or to die alone like a brave eagle on a rocky crag of a great mountain: that is the dilemma. – Praxedis Guerrero, Regeneración, 1911 February 18th