Quote collection
459 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"You cannot, in human experience, rush into the light. You have to go through the twilight into the broadening day before the noon comes and the full sun is upon the landscape."
"Americanism consists in utterly believing in the principles of America."
"Nothing was ever done so systematically as nothing is being done now."
"So far as the colleges go, the side-shows have swallowed up the circus, and we don't know what is going on in the main tent: and I don't want to continue as ringmaster under those conditions."
"The world is not looking for servants, there are plenty of these, but for masters, men who form their purposes and then carry them out, let the consequences be what they may."
"If you would be a leader of men you must lead your own generation, not the next. Your playing must be good now, while the play ison the boards and the audience in the seats.... It will not get you the repute of a good actor to have excellencies discovered in you afterwards."
"The greatest and truest models for all oratorsis Demosthenes. One who has not studied deeply and constantly all the great speeches of the great Athenian, is not prepared to speak in public. Only as the constant companion of Demosthenes, Burke, Fox, Canning and Webster, can we hope to become orators."
"I am not sure that it is of the first importance that you should be happy. Many an unhappy man has been of deep service to himself and to the world."
"My dream of politics all my life has been that it is the common business, that it is something we owe to each other to understand and discuss with absolute frankness."
"It is just as hard to do your duty when men are sneering at you as when they are shouting at you."
"Some Americans need hyphens in their names because only part of them has come over."
"Congress in session is Congress on public exhibition, whilst Congress in its committee-rooms is Congress at work."
"Only free peoples can hold their purpose and their honor steady to a common end, and prefer the interests of mankind to any narrow interest of their own."
"The awakening of the people of China to the possibilities under free government is the most significant, if not the most momentous, event of our generation."
"The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty."
"Golf is a game in which one endeavors to control a ball with implements ill adapted for the purpose."
"It is like writing history with lightning and my only regret is that it is all so terribly true."
"There is no indispensable man."
"There is such a thing as a man being too proud to fight."
"When correcting a child, the goal is to apply light, not heat."