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

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.

No matter what anyone may say about making the rich and the corporations pay taxes, in the end they come out of the people who toil.

I sometimes wish that people would put a little more emphasis upon the observance of the law than they do upon its enforcement.

No person was ever honored for what he received. Honor has been the reward for what he gave.

Money doesn’t change you; it reveals who you are when you no longer have to be nice.

I don’t judge my characters, and that’s my job not to judge them. It’s my job to treat them with respect and to just look at it from their point of view.

My only obligation is to my characters. And they came from where I have been.

If I’m doing my job right, then I’m not writing the dialogue; the characters are saying the dialogue, and I’m just jotting it down.

Particularly as a writer, it is my job to ignore social critics, or the response that social critics might have when it comes to the opinions of my characters, the way they talk, or anything that can happen to them.

It is brave to be involved. To be not fearful to be unresolved.

I remember one time that I was filming a scene in which my character rides through Troy on a chariot. I just looked around at this incredible set thinking ‘This is the life’.

The truth is that creative activity is one that involves the entire self – our emotions, our levels of energy, our characters, and our minds.