If there is one word that describes our form of society in America, it may be the word-voluntary.

Of course, I may go into a strange bedroom every now and then that I don't want you to write about, but otherwise you can write everything.

When I was a boy we didn't wake up with Vietnam and have Cyprus for lunch and the Congo for dinner.

Justice requires us to remember that when any citizen denies his fellow, saying, 'His color is not mine,' or 'His beliefs are strange and different,' in that moment he betrays America, though his forebears created this nation.

...in the decline of life shame and grief are of short duration; whether it be that we bear easily what we have borne long; or that, finding ourselves in age less regarded, we less regard others; or, that we look with slight regard upon afflictions to which we know that the hand of death is about to put an end.

We Americans know - although others appear to forget - the risk of spreading conflict. We still seek no wider war.

If the purpose of lamentation be to excite pity, it is surely superfluous for age and weakness to tell their plaintive stories; for pity presupposes sympathy, and a little attention will show them, that those who do not feel pain seldom think that it is felt.