“It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones.”

Nothing is easier than spending public money. It does not appear to belong to anybody. The temptation is overwhelming to bestow it on somebody.

In life there is nothing more common than talent and intelligence. What is missing is passion, persistence, commitment, and dedication.

We must have no carelessness in our dealings with public property or the expenditure of public money. Such a condition is characteristic either of an undeveloped people, or of a decadent civilization. America is neither.

We cannot do everything at once, but we can do something at once.

All growth depends upon activity. There is no development physically or intellectually without effort, and effort means work.

The higher state to which [America] seeks the allegiance of all mankind is not of human, but of divine origin. She cherishes no purpose save to merit the favor of Almighty God.

Four-fifths of all our troubles would disappear, if we would only sit down and keep still.

Ultimately property rights and personal rights are the same thing.

The best help that benevolence and philanthropy can give is that which induces everybody to help himself.

Whether one traces his Americanism back three centuries to the Mayflower, or three years to the steerage, is not half so important as whether his Americanism of today is real and genuine. No matter by what various crafts we came here, we are all now in the same boat.

Don’t expect to build up the weak by pulling down the strong.

Unless the people, through unified action, arise and take charge of their government, they will find that their government has taken charge of them. Independence and liberty will be gone, and the general public will find itself in a condition of servitude to an aggregation of organized and selfish interest.

Anytime you don’t want anything you get it.

If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions.

You can’t increase prosperity by taxing success.

School is not the end but only the beginning of an education.

It is not enough that your designs, nay that your actions, are intrinsically good, you must take care they shall appear so.

I’m a normal human being. I don’t have any desire to change my body as a result of having had two kids. That’s a good thing, isn’t it?

Let me ask you one question Is your money that good Will it buy you forgiveness Do you think that it could I think you will find When your death takes its toll All the money you made Will never buy back your soul

A good thing never ends.

I always think it’s better to be not taking drugs or drinking or anything. That’s not saying I’ve never done it because I have. But I sort of learned I think after a while there has been – it didn’t take me that long to realize that it wasn’t a good thing.

For neither good nor evil can last for ever; and so it follows that as evil has lasted a long time, good must now be close at hand.

There’s a starting place. And that starting place for everyone is ambition. We’re all scared of that word today because they made it bad in the late ’80s. As if desire is not a good thing.

The way that you become world-class is… by asking good questions.