“Understanding is the soil in which grow all the fruits of friendship.”

We came to America, either ourselves or in the persons of our ancestors, to better the ideals of men, to make them see finer things than they had seen before, to get rid of the things that divide and to make sure of the things that unite.

A conservative is someone who makes no changes and consults his grandmother when in doubt.

Has justice ever grown in the soil of absolute power? Has not justice always come from the … heart and spirit of men who resist power?

To fight, you must be brutal and ruthless, and the spirit of ruthless brutality will enter into the very fibre of national life.

At every crisis in one’s life, it is absolute salvation to have some sympathetic friend to whom you can think aloud without restraint or misgiving.

Any man that resists the present tides that run in the world, will find himself thrown upon a shore so high and barren that it will seem he has been separated from his human kind forever.

When I give a man an office, I watch him carefully to see whether he is swelling or growing.

The right is more precious than peace.

We are citizens of the world. The tragedy of our times is that we do not know this.

It is a fearful thing to lead this great peaceful people into war, into the most terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilizationitself seeming to be in the balance. But the right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things we have always carried closest to our hearts.

A man may be defeated by his own secondary successes.

What is the use of voting? We know that the machines of both parties are subsidized by the same persons, and therefore it is useless to turn in either direction.

I do not want a government that will take care of me, I want a government that will make other men take their hands off me so I can take care of myself.

I would never read a book if it were possible for me to talk half an hour with the man who wrote it.

Progressiveness means not standing still when everything else is moving.

The seed of revolution is repression.

In place of practising wholesome self-abnegation, we ever make the wish the father to the thought: we receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us; whereas the very reverse is required by every dictate of common sense.

Better to have him inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in.

I used to choose friends based on similarity in age and life stage, but I’ve learned that those were the wrong criteria. Trying to live life exclusively alongside others our own age is like attempting to climb Mt. Everest without a Sherpa. It’s a little dangerous.

Friendships born on the field of athletic strife are the real gold of competition. Awards become corroded, friends gather no dust.

It makes no sense to me that my gay friends cannot get married to each other because a certain slice of Christianity doesn’t believe in gay marriage.

Don’t worry about making friends; don’t worry about making enemies. Worry about winning, because if you win, your enemies can’t hurt you, and if you lose, your friends can’t stand you.

As fear is a close companion to falsehood, so truth follows fearlessness.

In first grade, I told my friends I had a third story in my house filled with jewels and lions.