You cannot barter security for freedom, or freedom for security.

Character isn't inherited.

If one lets fear or hate or anger take possession of the mind, they become self-forged chains.

If you tell me that there are obstacles in the way of your ambition that make it impossible to pursue, then I know it's not a real ambition. There are always obstacles. The 'perversity of events,' as someone once called it, is always ready to lick us. Events are never right for achieving what we most want to achieve. If this were not so, there would be no real fun in being 17 -- or even in being alive.

The discrepancy between American ideals and American practice - between our aims and what we actually do - creates a moral dry rot which eats away at the foundations of our democratic faith.

When a marriage works, nothing on earth can take its place

Nothing can be controlled by one country today; nothing.