Movies are like writing history with lightning.

The Constitution was not made to fit us like a straitjacket. In its elasticity lies its chief greatness.

The competent leader of men cares little for the niceties of other peoples' characters: he cares much--everything--for the exterior uses to which they may be put.... These are men to be moved. How should he move them? He supplies the power; others simply the materials on which that power operates.

One cool judgment is worth a thousand hasty councils. The thing to do is to supply light and not heat. Ay any rate, if it is heat it ought to be white heat and not sputter, because sputtering heat is apt to spread the fire. There ought, if there is any heat at all, to be that warmth of the heart which makes every man thrust aside his own personal feeling, his own personal interest, and take thought of the welfare and benefit of others.

Character, my friends, is a byproduct. It is produced in the great manufacture of daily duty.

The way to be patriotic in America is not only to love America, but to love the duty that lies nearest to our hand, and to know that in performing it we are serving our country.

I am one who fights without a knack of hoping confidentlysimply a Scotch-Irishman who will not be conquered.