You have just taken an oath of allegiance to the United States. Of allegiance to whom? Of allegiance to no one, unless it be God. Certainly not of allegiance to those who temporarily represent this great government. You have taken an oath of allegiance to a great ideal, to a great body of principles, to a great hope of the human race.

Any man that resists the present tides that run in the world, will find himself thrown upon a shore so high and barren that it will seem he has been separated from his human kind forever.

The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty.

No student knows his subject: the most he knows is where and how to find out the things he does not know

I have rather a strange objection to talking from the back platform of a train.... It changes too often. It moves around and shifts its ground too often. I like a platform that stays put.

By 'radical,' I understand one who goes too far; by 'conservative,' one who does not go far enough; by 'reactionary,' one who won't go at all.

A nation which does not remember what it was yesterday, does not know what it is today, nor what it is trying to do. We are trying to do a futile thing if we do not know where we came from or what we have been about.