“We can state with conviction, therefore, that a man’s support for absolute government is in direct proportion to the contempt he feels for his country.”

History is a gallery of pictures in which there are few originals and many copies.

Every central government worships uniformity: uniformity relieves it from inquiry into an infinity of details.

America is great because she is good.

If an American was condemned to confine his activity to his own affairs, he would be robbed of one half of his existence.

Generally speaking, only simple conceptions can grip the mind of a nation. An idea that is clear and precise even though false will always have greater power in the world than an idea that is true but complex.

When I refuse to obey an unjust law, I do not contest the right of the majority to command, but I simply appeal from the sovereignty of the people to the sovereignty of mankind.

Life is to be entered upon with courage.

One of the most ordinary weaknesses of the human intellect is to seek to reconcile contrary principles, and to purchase peace at the expense of logic.

All those who seek to destroy the liberties of a democratic nation ought to know that war is the surest and shortest means to accomplish it.

I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America.

I have only one passion, the love of liberty and human dignity.

The tie of language is perhaps the strongest and the most durable that can unite mankind.

I should have loved freedom, I believe, at all times, but in the time in which we live I am ready to worship it.

Nothing is so dangerous as that of violence employed by well-meaning people for beneficial objects.

Righteous women in their circle of influence, beginning in the home, can turn the world around.

If I were asked to what the singular prosperity and growing strength of Americans ought mainly to be attributed, I should reply: To the superiority of their women.

This is the story of America. Everybody’s doing what they think they’re supposed to do.

The life my people want is a life of freedom. I have seen nothing that a white man has, houses or railways or clothing or food, that is as good as the right to move in the open country and live in our fashion.

The ratio between supervisory and producing personnel is always highest where the intellectuals are in power. In a Communist country it takes half the population to supervise the other half.

In the city that the wolf enters, enemies will be close by. An alien force will sack a great country. Allies will cross the mountains and the borders.

Today, now, it is time to move forward, a time to look for what is good in others, what is good in our country. It is time to see what we have in common, what we have to share as human beings and citizens.

The food I’ve liked in my time is American country cookin’.

The first presentation of my show was given in May, 1883, at Omaha, which I had then chosen as my home. From there we made our first summer tour, visiting practically every important city in the country.

The fatherland shall one day be like this: We’re not all equal, but we’re all brothers.