Freedom is not worth fighting for if it means no more than license for everyone to get as much as he can for himself.

History is worth reading when it tells us truly what the attitude toward life was in the past.

Compared with more emotional types, Vermonters seem to have few passions. But those they have are great and burning. The greatest is their conviction that without freedom human life is not worth living.

I never heard of anybody who admired the character of sheep. Even the gentlest human personalities in contact with them are annoyed by their lack of brains, courage and initiative, by their extraordinary ability to get themselves into uncomfortable or dangerous situations and then wait in inert helplessness for someone to rescue them.

You can't wish a body any worse luck than to get what he wants.

one reason we haven't any national art is because we have too much magnificence. All our capacity for admiration is used up on the splendor of palace-like railway stations and hotels. Our national tympanum is so deafened by that blare of sumptuousness that we have no ears for the still, small voice of beauty.

there's no such thing as luck. Nothing ever just happens to anybody. ... nothing can really happen to a person till he lets it happen.