If there is not the war, you don't get the great general; if there is not a great occasion, you don't get a great statesman; if Lincoln had lived in a time of peace, no one would have known his name.

What counts in a man or in a nation is not what the man or the nation can do, but what he or it actually does.

Weasel words from mollycoddles will never do when the day demands prophetic clarity from greathearts. Manly men must emerge for this hour of trial.

The truth is that any good modern rifle is good enough. The determining factor is the man behind the gun.

Freedom from effort in the present merely means that there has been effort stored up in the past.

It may be that at some time in the dim future of the race the need for war will vanish: but that time is yet ages distant. As yet no nation can hold its place in the world, or can do any work really worth doing, unless it stands ready to guard its right with an armed hand.

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.