I confess my belief in the common man.... The man who is swimming against the stream knows the strength of it.... The man who is in the melee knows what blows are being struck and what blood is being drawn.

Let it be your pride to show all men everywhere not only what good soldiers you are, but also what good men you are.

The facts of the case will always have the better of [an] argument.

The greatest embarrassment of my political career has been that active duties seem to deprive me of time for careful investigation. I seem almost obliged to form conclusions from impressions instead of from study.... I wish that I had more knowledge, more thorough acquaintance, with the matters involved.

Caution is the confidential agent of selfishness.

There can be no equality or opportunity if men and women and children be not shielded in their lives from the consequences of great industrial and social processes which they cannot alter, control, or singly cope with.

A powerful Navy we have always regarded as our proper and natural means of defense; and it has always been of defense that we have thought, never of aggression or of conquest. But who shall tell us now what sort of Navy to build? We shall take leave to be strong upon the seas, in the future as in the past; and there will be no thought of offense or provocation in that. Our ships are our natural bulwarks.