“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.”

We want wealth, but there are many other things we want very much more. Among them are peace, honor, charity, and idealism.

We are too solicitous for government intervention, on the theory, first, that the people themselves are helpless, and second, that the Government has superior capacity for action. Often times both of these conclusions are wrong.

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.

I have found it advisable not to give too much heed to what people say when I am trying to accomplish something of consequence. Invariably they proclaim it can’t be done. I deem that the very best time to make the effort.

What men owe to the love and help of good women can never be told.

You can display no greater wisdom than by resisting proposals for needless legislation. It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones.

The attempt to regulate, control, and prescribe all manner of conduct and social relations is very old. It was always the practice of primitive people.

Governments do not make ideals, but ideals make governments.

One of the greatest favors that can be bestowed upon the American people is economy in government.

Economy is the method by which we prepare today to afford the improvements of tomorrow.

Doubters do not achieve; skeptics do not contribute; cynics do not create.

Never go out to meet trouble. If you just sit still, nine cases out of ten, someone will intercept it before it reaches you.

There have been great men with little of what we call education. There have been many small men with a great deal of learning. There has never been a great people who did not possess great learning.

We cannot permit any inquisition either within or without the law or apply any religious test to the holding of office. The mind of America must be forever free.

Freedom is not only bought with a great price; it is maintained by unremitting effort.

The most common commodity in this country is unrealized potential.

Somewhere along the way America became a giant mall with a country attached.

From what we’ve heard about George W., he has a lot issues that he wants to run on. They’re positive. They’re good. He thinks he’s got a good vision for America.

. . . learning never ends, and as we enter the next century, it will be more and more important for all Americans to be lifelong learners. . . . every one of us can contribute in some way to a better-educated America.

The citizens of America expect more. They deserve and they want more than a recital of problems.

If America was trying to keep the bubonic plague out of its hemisphere, Canadians would import it just to show their independence of American foreign policy.

But this is the great danger America faces. That we will cease to be one nation and become instead a collection of interest groups: city against suburb, region against region, individual against individual. Each seeking to satisfy private wants.

Let there be no illusions about the difficulty of forming this kind of a national community. It’s tough, difficult, not easy. But a spirit of harmony will survive in America only if each of us remembers that we share a common destiny.

As the egalitarianism of Marxism is attractive to many, socialism could have attracted many followers in America, anyway. But there is no doubt that it could not possibly have affected us so widely and so deeply as it has, had it not been heavily financed.