“The path of progress is seldom smooth. New things are often found hard to do. Our fathers found them so. We find them so. But are we not made better for the effort and sacrifice?”

The free man cannot be long an ignorant man.

Cuba ought to be free and independent, and the government should be turned over to the Cuban people.

Our past has gone into history.

Honesty, capacity, and industry are nowhere more indispensable than in public employment.

Let us ever remember that our interest is in concord, not in conflict; and that our real eminence rests in the victories of peace, not those of war.

I do not prize the word cheap. It is not a word of inspiration. It is the badge of poverty, the signal of distress. Cheap merchandise means cheap men and cheap men mean a cheap country.

I am for America because America is for the common people.

We need Hawaii just as much and a good deal more than we did California. It is manifest destiny.

In the time of darkest defeat, victory may be nearest.

The army of Grant and the army of Lee are together. They are one now in faith, in hope, in fraternity, in purpose, and in an invincible patriotism. And, therefore, the country is in no danger. In justice strong, in peace secure, and in devotion to the flag all one.

The best way for the Government to maintain its credit is to pay as it goes-not by resorting to loans, but by keeping out of debt-through an adequate income secured by a system of taxation, external or internal, or both.

I have never been in doubt since I was old enough to think intelligently that I would someday be made President.

Illiteracy must be banished from the land if we shall attain that high destiny as the foremost of the enlightened nations of the world which, under Providence, we ought to achieve.

War should never be entered upon until every agency of peace has failed.

By the blessings of heaven I mean to live and die, please God, in the faith of my mother.

Our faith teaches that there is no safer reliance than upon the God of our fathers who has so singularly favored the American people in every national trial and who will not forsake us so long as we obey His commandments and walk humbly in His footsteps