“A government which lays taxes on the people not required by urgent public necessity and sound public policy is not a protector of liberty, but an instrument of tyranny. It condemns the citizen to servitude.”

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.

Our government rests upon religion. It is from that source that we derive our reverance for truth and justice, for equality and liberty, and for the rights of mankind. Unless the people believe in these principles they cannot believe in our government.

I must govern the clock, not be governed by it.

The government needs to send out a message to the business community that ‘we are on your side.’

No government can help the destinies of people who insist in putting sectional and class consciousness ahead of general weal.

The governor of Texas, who, when asked if the Bible should also be taught in Spanish, replied that ‘if English was good enough for Jesus, then it’s good enough for me.

All I want is the same thing you want. To have a nation with a government that is as good and honest and decent and competent and compassionate and as filled with love as are the American people.

I want to preach a new doctrine. A complete separation of business and government.

The only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government strong enough to protect the interests of the people, and a people strong enough and well enough informed to maintain its sovereign control over the goverment.

Government cannot close its eyes to the pollution of waters, to the erosion of soil, to the slashing of forests any more than it can close its eyes to the need for slum clearance and schools.