To sit home, read one's favorite paper, and scoff at the misdeeds of the men who do things is easy, but it is markedly ineffective. It is what evil men count upon the good men's doing.
Let us show, not merely in great crises, but in every day of life, qualities of practical intelligence, of hardihood and endurance, and above all, the power of devotion to a lofty ideal.
Ours is a government of liberty by, through, and under the law.
A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be great or a democracy.
Every man, who parrots the cry of ‘stand by the President’ without adding the proviso ‘so far as he serves the Republic’ takes an attitude as essentially unmanly as that of any Stuart royalist who championed the doctrine that the King could do no wrong. No self-respecting and intelligent free man could take such an attitude.
There comes a time in the life of a nation, as in the life of an individual, when it must face great responsibilities, whether it will or no. We have now reached that time. We cannot avoid facing the fact that we occupy a new place among the people of the world.
Probably the greatest harm done by vast wealth is the harm that we of moderate means do ourselves when we let the vices of envy and hatred enter deep into our own natures.
Courage is not having the strength to go on, it is going on when you don't have the strength. Industry and determination can do anything that genius and advantage can do and many things that they cannot.
It is an incalculable added pleasure to any one's sum of happiness if he or she grows to know, even slightly and imperfectly, how to read and enjoy the wonder-book of nature.
There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag...We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language...and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.
The conservation of our natural resources and their proper use constitute the fundamental problem which underlies almost every other problem of our national life.