Quote collection
778 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"Personally I have never been able to understand why the head of a big business, whether it be the Nation, the State or the Army, or Navy should not desire to have very strong and positive people under him."
"No man can lead a public career really worth leading, no man can act with rugged independence in serious crises, nor strike at great abuses, nor afford to make powerful and unscrupulous foes, if he is himself vulnerable in his private character."
"It is a great mistake to think that the extremist is a better man than the moderate. Usually the difference is not that he is morally stronger, but that he is intellectually weaker. He is not more virtuous. He is simply more foolish."
"Laws are essential emanations from the self-poised character of God; they radiate from the sun to the circling edge of creation. Verily, the mighty Lawgiver hath subjected himself unto laws."
"Every man owes a part of his time and money to the business or industry in which he is engaged. No man has the moral right to withhold his support from an organization that is striving to improve conditions within his sphere."
"Just as Lincoln got contradictory advice from the extremists of both sides . . . so now I have to guard myself against the extremists of both sides."
"The one absolute certain way to bring this nation to ruin ... would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities."
"Leave it as it is. You can not improve on it. You can only mar it. The ages have been at work on it and man can only mar it. What you can do is keep it for your children, your children's children and for all who come after you."
"Comparison with something that is better is the thief of joy. Comparison with something that is worse is a joy - full of relief and gratitude! You cannot always choose what happens to you or your circumstances but you can always choose your attitude by what you choose to compare your experiences or circumstances to and therefore how you will feel!! We can make any experience either a heaven or a hell by what we compare it to. Our emotions are 'an inside job!'"
"There is quite enough sorrow and shame and suffering and baseness in real life, and there is no need for meeting it unnecessarily in fiction."
"To every man who faces life with real desire to do his part in everything, I appeal for a study of the Bible."
"We can just as little afford to follow the doctrinaires of an extreme individualism as the doctrinaires of an extreme socialism."
"I do not believe that any man can adequately appreciate the world of to-day unless he has some knowledge of -- a little more than a slight knowledge, some feeling for and of -- the history of the world of the past."
"Rarely has any people enjoyed greater prosperity than we are now enjoying. For this we render heartfelt and solemn thanks to the Giver of Good; and we seek to praise Him -not by words only -but by deeds, by the way in which we do our duty to ourselves and to our fellow men."
"While the nation that has dared to be great, that has had the will and the power to change the destiny of the ages, in the end must die, yet no less surely the nation that has played the part of the weakling must also die; and whereas the nation that has done nothing leaves nothing behind it, the nation that has done a great work really continues, though in changed form, to live forevermore."
"Practical efficiency is common, and lofty idealism not uncommon; it is the combination which is necessary, and the combination is rare"
"I believe that this Republic will endure for many centuries. If so there will doubtless be among its Presidents Protestants and Catholics, and very probably at some time, Jews. I have consistently tried while President to act in relation to my fellow Americans of Catholic faith as I hope that any future President who happens to be Catholic will act towards his fellow Americans of Protestant faith. Had I followed any other course I should have felt that I was unfit to represent the American people."
"In battle, the ONLY bullets that count are those that hit."
"Each child represents either a potential addition to the protective capacity and enlightened citizenship of the nation or, if allowed to suffer from neglect, a potential addition to the destructive forces of a community. . . . The interests of the nation are involved in the welfare of this array of children no less than in our great material affairs."
"Look Toward the stars but keep your feet firmly on the ground."