Character isn't inherited. One builds it daily by the way one thinks and acts, thought by thought, action by action. If one lets fear or hate or anger take possession of the mind, they become self-forged chains.

men never would share power with women willingly. If we wanted it, we would have to take it.

Democracy cannot long survive when the people permit their lives to be dominated - economically or politically - by a powerful few.

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.

A vigorous democracy a democracy in which there are freedom from want, freedom from fear, freedom of religion, and freedom of speech would never succumb to communism or any other ism.

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

If the national security is involved, anything goes. There are no rules. There are people so lacking in roots about what is properand what is improper that they don't know there's anything wrong in breaking into the headquarters of the opposition party.