“I want the people of America to be able to work less for the government, and more for themselves”

The right thing to do never requires any subterfuge, it is always simple and direct.

Collecting more taxes than is absolutely necessary is legalized robbery.

When people are bewildered they tend to become credulous.

The foundations of our society and our government rest so much on the teachings of the Bible that it would be difficult to support them if faith in these teachings would cease to be practically universal in our country.

Life is one darn thing after another.

The nation which forgets its defenders will be itself forgotten.

When more and more people are thrown out of work, unemployment results.

The only way I know to drive out evil from the country is by the constructive method of filling it with good.

Liberty is not collective, it is personal. All liberty is individual liberty.

Patriotism is easy to understand in America. It means looking out for yourself by looking out for your country.

We do not need more intellectual power, we need more spiritual power. We do not need more of the things that are seen, we need more of the things that are unseen.

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers. It may not be difficult to store up in the mind a vast quantity of facts within a comparatively short time, but the ability to form judgments requires the severe discipline of hard work and the tempering heat of experience and maturity.

Surprisingly few men are lacking in capacity, but they fail because. they are too indolent to apply themselves with the seriousness and the attention that is necessary to solve important problems.

There is no surer road to destruction than prosperity without character.

When a man begins to feel that he is the only one who can lead in this republic, he is guilty of treason to the spirit of our institutions.

Workmen’s compensation, hours and conditions of labor are cold consolations, if there be no employment.

A thoughtful mind, when it sees a Nation’s flag, sees not the flag only, but the Nation itself; and whatever may be its symbols, its insignia, he reads chiefly in the flag the Government, the principles, the truths, the history which belongs to the Nation that sets it forth.

For the world is only governed by self-interest.

Democracy is not so much a form of government as a set of principles.

Based on every statement I’ve heard out of any Republican in the last two years, the Israelis are controlling our government.

Society is well governed when its people obey the magistrates, and the magistrates obey the law.

Governments are suspicious of literature because it is a force that eludes them.

Unlike any other nation, here the people rule, and their will is the supreme law. It is sometimes sneeringly said by those who do not like free government, that here we count heads. True, heads are counted, but brains also.

Human action is governed largely by instinct and emotion.