Rhetoric is a poor substitute for action, and we have trusted only to rhetoric. If we are really to be a great nation, we must not merely talk; we must act big.
No other President ever enjoyed the Presidency as I did.
I ask of each Mason, of each member, of each brother, that he shall remember ever that there is upon him a peculiar obligation to show himself in every respect a good citizen; for after all, the way he can best do his duty by the ancient order to which he belongs is by reflecting credit upon that order by way in which he performs his duty as a citizen of the United States.
The Constitution was made for the people and not the people for the Constitution.
Constructive change offers the best method for avoiding destructive change.
Anything that encourages pauperism, anything that relaxes the manly fiber and lowers self-respect, is an unmixed evil.
No people ever yet benefited by riches if their prosperity corrupted their virtue.
Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it, you've got to start young.
Nothing is gained by debate on non-debatable subjects.
The reader, the booklover, must meet his own needs without paying too much attention to what his neighbors say those needs should be.
The one characteristic more essential than any other is foresight... It should be the growing nation with a future which takes the long look ahead.
The worst thing I can do is nothing.
Big jobs usually go to the men who prove their ability to outgrow small ones.
It's not having been in the Dark House, but having left it that counts.
These international bankers and Rockefeller Standard Oil interests control the majority of newspapers and the columns of these papers to club into submission or drive out of public office officials who refuse to do the bidding of the powerful corrupt cliques which compose the invisible government.
When liberty becomes license, some form of one-man power is not far distant.
The supreme duty of the Nation is the conservation of human resources through an enlightened measure of social and industrial justice. We pledge ourselves to work unceasingly in State and Nation for ... the protection of home life against the hazards of sickness, irregular employment and old age through the adoption of a system of social insurance adapted to American use.
We must diligently strive to make our young men decent, God-fearing, law-abiding, honor-loving, justice-doing and also fearless and strong.
The White House is a bully pulpit.
There is no effort without error or shortcoming.
Even in ordinary times there are very few of us who do not see the problems of life as through a glass, darkly; and when the glass is clouded by the murk of furious popular passion, the vision of the best and the bravest is dimmed.
It tires me to talk to rich men. You expect a man of millions, the head of a great industry, to be a man worthhearing; but as a rule they don't know anything outside their own business.
There is nothing more distressing ... than the hard, scoffing spirit which treats the allegation of dishonesty in a public man as a cause for laughter. Such laughter is worse than the crackling of thorns under a pot, for it denotes not merely the vacant mind, but the heart in which high emotions have been choked before they could grow to fruition.
Nine tenths of wisdom consists in being wise in time.
To borrow a simile from the football field, we believe that men must play fair, but that there must be no shirking, and that the success can only come to the player who hits the line hard.
Much has been given us, and much will rightfully be expected from us. We have duties to others and duties to ourselves; and we can shrink neither.
If, in any individual, university training produces a taste for refined idleness, a distaste for sustained effort, a barren intellectual arrogance, or a sense of superfluous aloofness from the world of real men who do the world's real work, then it has harmed that individual.
Our loyalty is due entirely to the United States. It is due to the President only and exactly to the degree in which he efficiently serves the United States. It is our duty to support him when he serves the United States well. It is our duty to oppose him when he serves it badly. This is true about Mr. Wilson now and it has been true about all our Presidents in the past. It is our duty at all times to tell the truth about the President and about every one else, save in the cases where to tell the truth at the moment would benefit the public enemy.
It is better to be faithful than famous.
There can be no effective control of corporations while their political activity remains.
I am a man who believes with all fervor and intensity in moderate progress. Too often men who believe in moderation believe in it only moderately and tepidly and leave fervor to the extremists of the two sides - the extremists of reaction and the extremists of progress. Washington, Lincoln . . . are men who, to my mind, stand as the types of what wide, progressive leadership should be.
To the second end, we hold that minimum wage commissions should be established in the Nation and in each State to inquire into wages paid in various industries and to determine the standard which the public ought to sanction as a minimum; and we believe that, as a present installment of what we hope for in the future, there should be at once established in the Nation and its several States minimum standards for the wages of women, taking the present Massachusetts law as a basis from which to start and on which to improve.
Don't foul, don't flinch-hit the line hard.
Much of the usefulness of any career must lie in the impress that it makes upon, and the lessons that it teaches to, the generations that come after.
The wild life of today is not ours to do with as we please. The original stock was given to us in trust for the benefit both of the present and the future. We must render an accounting of this trust to those who come after us.
No ability, no strength and force, no power of intellect or power of wealth, shall avail us, if we have not the root of right living in us.
If a man continually blusters, if he lacks civility, a big stick will not save him from trouble, and neither will speaking softly avail, if back of the softness there does not lie strength, power.
When money comes in at the gate, sport flies out at the window.
Compromise" is so often used in a bad sense that it is difficult to remember that properly it merely describes the process of reaching an agreement. Naturally there are certain subjects on which no man can compromise. For instance, there must be no compromise under any circumstances with official corruption, and of course no man should hesitate to say as much.
It was a pleasure to deal with a man of high ideals, who scorned everything mean and base, and who possessed those robust and hardy qualities of body and mind, for the lack of which no merely negative virtue can ever atone.
After the war, and until the day of his death, his position on almost every public question was either mischievous or ridiculous, and usually both.
Over-sentimentality, over-softness, in fact washiness and mushiness are the great dangers of this age and of this people. Unless we keep the barbarian virtues, gaining the civilized ones will be of little avail.
The wolf is the arch type of ravin, the beast of waste and desolation.
Envy is as evil a thing as arrogance.
From the very beginning our people have markedly combined practical capacity for affairs with power of devotion to an ideal. The lack of either quality would have rendered the other of small value.
Property belongs to man and not man to property.
A revolution is sometimes necessary, but if revolutions become habitual the country in which they take place is going down-hill
Thehighest form of success comes to the man who does not shrink fromdanger, from hardship or from bitter toil, and who, out of these, winsthe splendid ultimate triumph.
Yes, Haven, most of us enjoy preaching, and Ive got such a bully pulpit!
The most ultimately righteous of all wars is a war with savages.
We can no more and no less afford to condone evil in the man of capital than evil in the man of no capital.
I hold it to be our duty to see that the wage-worker, the small producer, the ordinary consumer, shall get their fair share of business prosperity. But it either is or ought to be evident to everyone that business has to prosper before anybody can get any benefit from it.
Every Man owes some of his time to the upbuilding of the profession to which he belongs.
The human body has two ends on it: one to create with and one to sit on. Sometimes people get their ends reversed. When this happens they need a kick in the seat of the pants.
I am a strong individualist by personal habit, inheritance, and conviction; but it is a mere matter of common sense to recognize that the State, the community, the citizens acting together, can do a number of things better than if they were left to individual action.
Our words must be judged by our deeds; and in striving for a lofty ideal we must use practical methods; and if we cannot attain all at one leap, we must advance towards it step by step, reasonably content so long as we do actually make some progress in the right direction.
Courage, hard work, self-mastery, and intelligent effort are all essential to successful life.
Wars are, of course, as a rule to be avoided; but they are far better than certain kinds of peace.
The leader works in the open and the boss in covert. The leader leads, and the boss drives.
Aggressive fighting for the right is the noblest sport the world affords.
