We are the heirs of the ages

There are no words that can tell the hidden spirit of the wilderness, that can reveal its mystery, its melancholy and its charm.

I am a strong individualist by personal habit, inheritance, and conviction; but it is a mere matter of common sense to recognize that the State, the community, the citizens acting together, can do a number of things better than if they were left to individual action.

In speaking to you men of the greatest city of the West, men of the state which gave to the country Lincoln and Grant, men who preeminently and distinctly embody all that is most American in the American character, I wish to preach not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life.

The boy who is going to make a great man must not make up his mind merely to overcome a thousand obstacles, but to win in spite of a thousand repulses and defeats.

The reactionary is always willing to take a progressive attitude on any issue that is dead.

A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad.