My place in history will depend on what I can do for the people and not on what the people can do for me.

Destiny is no matter of chance. It is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.

Anglo-Saxon civilization has taught the individual to protect his own rights; American civilization will teach him to respect the rights of others.

If the Bible had said that Jonah swallowed the whale, I would believe it.

Never be afraid to stand with the minority when the minority is right, for the minority which is right will one day be the majority.

All the ills from which America suffers can be traced back to the teaching of evolution. It would be better to destroy every other book ever written, and save just the first three verses of Genesis.

Burn down your cities and leave our farms, and your cities will spring up again as if by magic; but destroy our farms and the grass will grow in the streets of every city in the country.

No one can earn a million dollars honestly.

Selfish interest is one of the most common obstructions to the advance of truth.

The way to develop self-confidence is to do the thing you fear and get a record of successful experiences behind you.

Two people in a conversation amount to four people talking. The four are what one person says, what he really wanted to say, what his listener heard, and what he thought he heard.

Getting something and having the wits to use it...those are two different things.

The trouble with being patient is that eventually you get tired of it.

Great triumphs of engineering genius-the locomotive, the truss bridge, the steel rail- ... are rather invention than engineering proper.

It is socialism. It moves the country in a direction which is not good for anyone, whether they be young or old. It charts a course from which there will be no turning back.

First of all move me, surprise me, rend my heart; make me tremble, weep, shudder; outrage me; delight my eyes afterwards if you can.

There's so much tragedy in people that we see every day that we don't have to make anything up. We don't have to invent anything. There are two items on the menu: comedy and tragedy.

We are eternally linked not just to each other but our environment.

Washington is a place where people have always been suspect of style and overt sexuality. Too much preening signals that you're not up late studying cap-and-trade agreements.

The reason we are so pleased to find other people's secrets is that it distracts public attention from our own.

If you don't do it this year, you'll just be one year older when you do.