I've long believed one of the mainsprings of our own liberty has been the widespread ownership of property among our people and the expectation that anyone's child, even from the humblest of families, could grow up to own a business or corporation.

There are no constraints on the human mind, no walls around the human spirit, no barriers to our progress except those we ourselves erect.

It's hard, when you're up to your armpits in alligators, to remember you came here to drain the swamp.

A troubled and afflicted mankind looks to us, pleading for us to keep our rendezvous with destiny; that we will uphold the principles of self-reliance, self-discipline, morality, and - above all - responsible liberty for every individual that we will become that shining city on a hill.

We've gone astray from first principles. We've lost sight of the rule that individual freedom and ingenuity are at the very core of everything that we've accomplished. Government's first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives.

Without God, democracy will not and cannot long endure.

Even now I wonder what I might have accomplished if I'd studied harder