What higher obligation does a President have than to explain his intentions to the people and persuade them that the direction he wishes to go is right?

The first rule of democracy is to distrust all leaders who begin to believe their own publicity.

Politics in a democracy is, at the end, an educational process.

History is, indeed, an argument without end.

I don't think I have made as much of my life as I should have. I should have written more books.

Those who are convinced they have a monopoly on The Truth always feel that they are only saving the world when they slaughter the heretics.

To say that there is a case for heroes is not to say that there is a case for hero worship. The surrender of decision, the unquestioning submission to leadership, the prostration of the average man before the Great Man -- these are the diseases of heroism, and they are fatal to human dignity. History amply shows that it is possible to have heroes without turning them into gods. And history shows, too, that when a society, in flight from hero worship, decides to do without great men at all, it gets into troubles of its own.