Sometimes people call me an idealist. Well, that is the way I know I am an American. America is the only idealistic nation in the world.
America lives in the heart of every man everywhere who wishes to find a region where he will be free to work out his destiny as he chooses.
The interesting and inspiring thing about America is that she asks nothing for herself except what she has a right to ask for humanity itself.
Most men are individuals no longer so far as their business, its activities, or its moralities are concerned. They are not units but fractions.
Caution is the confidential agent of selfishness.
If you want to make enemies, try to change something.
If you will think about what you ought to do for other people, your character will take care of itself. Character is a by-product, and any man who devotes himself to its cultivation in his own case will become a selfish prig.
Character is a by-product; it is produced in the great manufacture of daily duty.
It is just as hard to do your duty when men are sneering at you as when they are shouting at you.
I believe in democracy, because it releases the energies of every human being.
Democracy is not so much a form of government as a set of principles.
America is the place where you cannot kill your government by killing the men who conduct it.
That a peasant may become king does not render the kingdom democratic.
The world must be made safe for democracy.
We grow great by dreams. All big men are dreamers.
We grow by our dreams.
Surely a man has come to himself only when he has found the best that is in him, and has satisfied his heart with the highest achievement he is fit for.
Fear God and you need not fear anyone else.
There is such a thing as a man being too proud to fight.
Friendship is the only cement that will ever hold the world together.
You cannot be friends upon any other terms than upon the terms of equality.
The nation's honor is dearer than the nation's comfort; yes, than the nation's life itself.
There is no question what the roll of honor in America is. The roll of honor consists of the names of men who have squared their conduct by ideals of duty.
America is not anything if it consists of each of us. It is something only if it consists of all of us.
Only free peoples can hold their purpose and their honor steady to a common end and prefer the interest of mankind to any narrow interest of their own.
One cool judgment is worth a thousand hasty counsels. The thing to do is to supply light and not heat.
No man has ever risen to the real stature of spiritual manhood until he has found that it is finer to serve somebody else than it is to serve himself.
I would rather belong to a poor nation that was free than to a rich nation that had ceased to be in love with liberty.
The history of liberty is the history of the limitations of governmental power, not the increase of it. When we resist the concentration of power we are resisting the powers of death. Concentration of power precedes the destruction of human liberties.
Liberty has never come from government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of it. The history of liberty is a history of resistance. The history of liberty is a history of limitations of governmental power, not the increase of it.
No thoughtful man ever came to the end of his life, and had time and a little space of calm from which to look back upon it, who did not know and acknowledge that it was what he had done unselfishly and for others, and nothing else, that satisfied him in the retrospect, and made him feel that he had played the man.
Loyalty means nothing unless it has at its heart the absolute principle of self-sacrifice.
You cannot become thorough Americans if you think of yourselves in groups. America does not consist of groups. A man who thinks of himself as belonging to a particular national group in America has not yet become an American.
All things come to him who waits -- provided he knows what he is waiting for.
It must be peace without victory; only a peace between equals can last.
There is a price which is too great to pay for peace, and that price can be put in one word. One cannot pay the price of self-respect.
Prosperity and is necessarily the first theme of a political campaign.
The success of a party means little more than that the Nation is using the party for a large and definite purpose. It seeks to use and interpret a change in its own plans and point of view.
No man can worship God or love his neighbor on an empty stomach.
There must be, not a balance of power, but a community of power; not organized rivalries, but an organized peace.
Nothing was ever done so systematically as nothing is being done now.
Today's greatest labor-saving device is tomorrow.
A radical is one of whom people say He goes too far. A conservative, on the other hand, is one who doesn't go far enough. Then there is the reactionary, one who doesn't go at all. All these terms are more or less objectionable, wherefore we have
When I give a man an office, I watch him carefully to see whether he is swelling or growing.
We should not only master questions, but also act upon them, and act definitely.
I not only use all the brains I have but all I can borrow.
Provision for others is a fundamental responsibility of human life.
All the extraordinary men I have known were extraordinary in their own estimation.
A little group of willful men reflecting no opinion but their own have rendered the great Government of the United States helpless and contemptible.
You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand.
I have always been among those who believed that the greatest freedom of speech was the greatest safety, because if a man is a fool the best thing to do is to encourage him to advertise the fact by speaking.
Generally young men are regarded as radicals. This is a popular misconception. The most conservative persons I ever met are college undergraduates. The radicals are the men past middle life.
No student knows his subject: the most he knows is where and how to find out the things he does not know.
I would rather fail in a cause that will ultimately succeed than succeed in a cause that will ultimately fail.
We cannot be separated in interest or divided in purpose. We stand together until the end.
I would rather lose in a cause that will some day win, than win in a cause that will some day lose!
No man that does not see visions will ever realize any high hope or undertake any high enterprise.
Wisdom doesn't necessarily come with age. Sometimes age just shows up all by itself.
We are citizens of the world. The tragedy of our times is that we do not know this.
The most conservative persons I ever met are college undergraduates. The radicals are the men past middle life.