“If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”

In a period scarcely twice my own lifetime it has risen from nothingness to become the world’s greatest power. It has become the ark of the covenant of freedom.

We are living in a highly organized state of socialism. The state is all; the individual is of importance only as he contributes to the welfare of the state. His property is only his as the state does not need it. He must hold his life and his possessions at the call of the state.

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.

“The king may die, or I may die, or the horse may die. Furthermore, in a year, who knows? Maybe the horse will learn to fly.” My philosophy is like that man’s. I take the long-range view.

One of the secrets of a long and fruitful life is to forgive everybody everything everynight before you go to bed.

You can overcome anything if you don’t bellyache.

Never pay the slightest attention to what a company president ever says about his stock.

I have known men who could see through the motivations of others with the skill of a clairvoyant; only to prove blind to their own mistakes. I have been one of those men.

The essence of any plan for financing old age is saving-to put aside some part of today’s earnings for the future.

If the history of the past fifty years teaches us anything, it is that peace does not follow disarmament – disarmament follows peace.

Beware of him who promises something for nothing. Do not blame anybody for your mistakes and failures. Do not look for approval except the consciousness of doing your best.

Whatever failures I have known, whatever errors I have committed, whatever follies I have witnessed in private and public life have been the consequence of action without thought.

Even when we know what is right, too often we fail to act. More often we grab greedily for the day, letting tomorrow bring what it will, putting off the unpleasant and unpopular.

Financial storm definitely passed.

Society can progress if men’s labors show a profit – if they yield more than is put in. To produce at a loss must leave less for all to share.

Let us not deceive ourselves; we must elect world peace or world destruction.

If I had a hammer, there’d be no more folksingers.

Art is not a mirror. Art is a hammer.

If you have a hammer, use it everywhere you can, but I do not claim that everything is fractal.

The implied threat of using nuclear weapons to curb guerrillas was as absurd as to talk of using a sledge hammer to ward off a swarm of mosquitoes.