“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.”

Whatever role we were in our family of birth, we take on this persona and in your 20s and 30s in particular, you end up thinking that’s you and that isn’t necessarily you.

You can’t repeal human nature by an Act of Congress.

Old books that have ceased to be of service should no more be abandoned than should old friends who have ceased to give pleasure.

During my eighty-seven years I have witnessed a whole succession of technological revolutions. But none of them has done away with the need for character in the individual or the ability to think.

Approach each new problem not with a view of finding what you hope will be there, but to get the truth.

Agriculture is the greatest and fundamentally the most important of our industries. The cities are but the branches of the tree of national life, the roots of which go deeply into the land. We all flourish or decline with the farmer.

Only as you do know yourself can your brain serve you as a sharp and efficient tool. Know your own failings, passions, and prejudices so you can separate them from what you see.

Never answer a critic, unless he’s right.

I get the facts, I study them patiently, I apply imagination.

The terror created by weaponry has never stopped men from employing them.

Vote for the man who promises least; he’ll be the least disappointing.

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. .

We did not all come over on the same ship, but we are all in the same boat.

I made my money by selling too soon.

Approach each new problem not with a view of finding what you hope will be there, but to get the truth, the realities that must be grappled with.

Only liars manage to always be out during bad times and in during good times.