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

Understanding is the soil in which grow all the fruits of friendship.

A fault which humbles a person is of more use to him or her than a good action which puffs him or her up.

I must beg you to indulge me in the matter of hyphens.... You will find that I have marked out a great many in the proofs. We arein danger of Germanizing our printing by using them so much, and I have a very decided preference in the matter.

No man ever saw a government. I live in the midst of the Government of the United States, but I never saw the Government of the United States.

In fundamental theory socialism and democracy are almost if not quite one and the same. They both rest at bottom upon the absolute right of the community to determine its own destiny and that of its members. Men as communities are supreme over men as individuals. Limits of wisdom and convenience to the public control there may be: limits of principle there are, upon strict analysis, none.

No government has ever been beneficent when the attitude of government was that it was taking care of the people. The only freedom consists in the people taking care of the government.