When beggars and shoeshine boys, barbers and beauticians can tell you how to get rich it is time to remind yourself that there is no more dangerous illusion than the belief that one can get something for nothing.
A man sentenced to death obtained a reprieve by assuring the king he would teach his majesty’s horse to fly within the year – on the condition that if he didn’t succeed, he would be put to death at the end of the year. “Within a year,” the man explained later.
Government is not a substitute for people, but simply the instrument through which they act. And if the individual fails to do his duty as a citizen, government becomes a very deadly instrument indeed.
So efficient are the available instruments of slavery; fingerprints, lie detectors, brain washings, gas chambers; that we shiver at the thought of political change which might put these instruments in the hands of men of hate.
I was the son of an immigrant. I experienced bigotry, intolerance and prejudice, even as so many of you have. Instead of allowing these thing to embitter me, I took them as spurs to more strenuous effort. .
None of us can be free of conflict and woe. Even the greatest men have had to accept disappointments as their daily bread. … The art of living lies less in eliminating our troubles than in growing with them.
