Energy in a nation is like sap in a tree; it rises from bottom up.

The truth is we are all caught in a great economic system which is heartless.

Sometimes people call me an idealist. Well, that is the way I know I am an American. America is the only idealistic nation in the world.

Only free peoples can hold their purpose and their honor steady to a common end, and prefer the interests of mankind to any narrow interest of their own.

...men are not put into this world to go the path of ease, they are put into this world to go the path of pain and struggle.

Every man who takes office in Washington either grows or swells, and when I give a man an office, I watch him carefully to see whether he is swelling or growing. The mischief of it is that when they swell, they do not swell enough to burst.

The profession I chose was politics; the profession I entered was law. I entered the one because I thought it would lead to the other.