“Books can not be killed by fire. People die, but books never die. No man and no force can abolish memory… In this war, we know, books are weapons. And it is a part of your dedication always to make them weapons for man’s freedom.”

Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.

Be sincere; be brief; be seated.

The loneliest feeling in the world is when you think you are leading the parade and turn to find that no one is following you. No president who badly misguesses public opinion will last very long.

Those who have long enjoyed such privileges as we enjoy forget in time that men have died to win them.

Against naked force the only possible defense is naked force. The aggressor makes the rules for such a war; the defenders have no alternative but matching destruction with more destruction, slaughter with greater slaughter.

All of our people all over the country-except the pure-blooded Indians-are immigrants or descendants of immigrants, including even those who came over here on the Mayflower.

The presidency is not merely an administrative office. It is pre-eminently a place of moral leadership.

Do Something. If it works, do more of it. If it doesn’t, do something else.

A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned how to walk forward.

We are trying to construct a more inclusive society. We are going to make a country in which no one is left out.

There are as many opinions as there are experts.

To some generations much is given. Of other generations, much is expected.

Rules are not necessarily sacred, principles are.

True individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.

An election cannot give a country a firm sense of direction if it has two or more national parties which merely have different names but are as alike in their principles and aims as peas in the same pod.

Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education.

We should keep the dead before our eyes, and honor them as though still living.

Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.

I need silence, and to be alone and to go out, and to save one hour to consider what has happened to my world, what death has done to my world.

So, have a little fun. Soon enough you’ll be dead and burning in Hell with the rest of your family.

Truly man is the king of beasts, for his brutality exceeds them. We live by the death of others. We are burial places.

Of all the ways to lose a person, death is the kindest.

No one knows whether death may not be the greatest of all blessings for a man, yet men fear it as if they knew it was the greatest of evils.

I have died too many deaths that were not mine.