It is a fearful thing to lead this great peaceful people into war, into the most terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilizationitself seeming to be in the balance. But the right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things we have always carried closest to our hearts.
There is no indispensable man. The government will not collapse and go to pieces if any one of the gentlemen who are seeking to be entrusted with its guidance should be left at home.
I have received delegations of working men who, apparently speaking with the utmost sincerity, have declared that they would regard it as a genuine hardship if they were deprived of their beer, for example.
Man is much more than a 'rational being' and lives more by sympathies and impressions than by conclusions. It darkens his eyes and dries up the wells of his humanity to be forever in search of doctrine. We need wholesome, experiencing natures, I dare affirm, much more than we need sound reasoning.
Here lies, in a "horizontal" position The "outside" case of Peter Pendulum, watch-maker. He departed this life "wound up" In hopes of being "taken in hand" by his Maker, And of being thoroughly "cleaned, repaired" and "set a-going" In the world to come.
We came to America, either ourselves or in the persons of our ancestors, to better the ideals of men, to make them see finer things than they had seen before, to get rid of the things that divide and to make sure of the things that unite.
There was a time when corporations played a minor part in our business affairs, but now they play the chief part, and most men are the servants of corporations.
Jefferson's Declaration of Independence is a practical document for the use of practical men. It is not a thesis for philosophers, but a whip for tyrants; it is not a theory of government but a program of action.
I do not want to live under a philanthropy. I do not want to be taken care of by the government.... We do not want a benevolent government. We want a free and a just government.