Being a president is like riding a tiger. A man has to keep on riding or he is swallowed.

The greatest honor that has come to me, and that can ever come to me in my life, is to be Grand Master of Masons in Missouri.

When even one American - who has done nothing wrong - is forced by fear to shut his mind and close his mouth - then all Americans are in peril.

There are always a lot of people so afraid of rocking the boat that they stop rowing. We can never get ahead that way.

In reading the lives of great men, I found that the first victory they won was over themselves... self-discipline with all of them came first.

[The American President] has to take all sorts of abuse from liars and demagogues.… The people can never understand why the President does not use his supposedly great power to make ’em behave. Well, all the President is, is a glorified public relations man who spends his time flattering, kissing and kicking people to get them to do what they are supposed to do anyway.

I remember when I first came to Washington. For the first six months you wonder how the hell you ever got here. For the next six months you wonder how the hell the rest of them ever got here.