Caution is the confidential agent of selfishness.

Liberty does not consist in mere declarations of the rights of man. It consists in the translation of those declarations into definite action.

A little group of willful men, representing no opinion but their own, have rendered the great government of the United States helpless and contemptible.

Today, supremely, it behooves us to remember that a nation shall be saved by the power that sleeps in its own bosom; or by none; shall be renewed in hope, in confidence, in strength by waters welling up from its own sweet, perennial springs. Not from above; not by patronage of its aristocrats. The flower does not bear the root, but the root the flower.

Music says nothing to the reason: it is a kind of closely structured nonsense.

I would never read a book if it were possible for me to talk half an hour with the man who wrote it.

Be militant! Be an organization that is going to do things! If you can find older men who will give you countenance and acceptableleadership, follow them; but if you cannot, organize separately and dispense with them. There are only two sorts of men to be associated with when something is to be done: Those are young men and men who never grow old.