All quotes

Industry, thrift, character, are not conferred by act or resolve. Government cannot relieve from toil.

As the racial distinction of humanity lies in its social relation, so we find the distinctive gains and losses of humanity to lie also in its social relation. We are more affected by our relation to each other than by our physical environment.

The basic condition of human life is union; the organic social relation, the interchange of functional service, wherein the individual is most advantaged, not by his own exertions for his own goods, but by the exchange of his exertions with the exertions of others for goods produced by them together.

The Constitution defines the functions and powers of the executive as clearly as those of either of the other two departments of the Government, and he must answer for the just exercise of the discretion it permits and the performance of the duties it imposes.

At the center of this movement is a crucial conviction: that a nation exists to serve its citizens.

It decrees that we, the people, elect leaders not to rule but to serve.

The basic concept underlying the Eighth Amendment is nothing less than the dignity of man.

The most violent element in society is ignorance.

Every thought, every word is impressed upon it and carried out in amazing detail.

Whatever man feels deeply or images clearly, is impressed upon the subconscious mind, and carried out in minutest detail.

Good citizens may well claim the protection of good laws and the benign influence of good government, but a claim for office is what the people of a republic should never recognize.

To enslave men successfully and safely it is necessary to keep their minds occupied with thoughts and aspirations short of the liberty of which they are deprived.

A President is neither prince nor pope, and I don't seek a window on men's souls.

There is but one just use of power, and it is to serve people.

It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government.

Liberty itself will find in such a government, with powers properly distributed and adjusted, its surest guardian.

The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government.

The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established government.

Our Constitution works; our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men.

The law, whether human or divine, is no respecter of persons; but the law is a respecter of reality.

Every citizen owes to the country a vigilant watch and close scrutiny of its public servants and a fair and reasonable estimate of their fidelity and usefulness.

My master had power and law on his side; I had a determined will.

I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures

The animosities of elections should have no place in our Government, for government must concern itself alone with the common weal.

The worst evil of disregard for some law is that it destroys respect for all law.