Caution is the confidential agent of selfishness.

The interesting and inspiring thing about America is that she asks nothing for herself except what she has a right to ask for humanity itself.

I can imagine no greater disservice to the country than to establish a system of censorship that would deny to the people of a free republic like our own their indisputable right to criticize their own public officials. While exercising the great powers of the office I hold, I would regret in a crisis like the one through which we are now passing to lose the benefit of patriotic and intelligent criticism.

The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty. We have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no dominion. We seek no indemnities for ourselves, no material compensation for the sacrifices we shall freely make.

Our most dangerous tendency is to expect too much of government, and at the same time do for it too little. . . . We must strive for normalcy to reach stability.

A nation is as great, and only as great, as her rank and file.

The man who disparages music as a luxury and non-essential is doing the nation an injury. Music now, more than ever before, is a national need.