Echoes

Plato is my friend — Aristotle is my friend — but truth is a greater friend.

If my body dies, let my body die, but do not let my country die.

Self-sufficiency is the greatest of all wealth.

Self-sufficiency is the greatest of all wealth.

Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first.

Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect.

We must see that there is civic honesty, civic cleanliness, civic good sense in our home administration of city, State, and nation. We must strive for honesty in office, for honesty toward the creditors of the nation and of the individual; for the widest freedom of individual initiative where possible, and for the wisest control of individual initiative where it is hostile to the welfare of the many. But because we set our own household in order we are not thereby excused from playing our part in the great affairs of the world. A man's first duty is to his own home, but he is not thereby excused from doing his duty to the State; for if he fails in this second duty it is under the penalty of ceasing to be a freeman. In the same way, while a nation's first duty is within its own borders, it is not thereby absolved from facing its duties in the world as a whole; and if it refuses to do so, it merely forfeits its right to struggle for a place among the peoples that shape the destiny of mankind.

To be popular is easy; to be right when right is unpopular, is noble... I repudiate with scorn the immoral doctrine, 'Our country, right or wrong'.

May God continue the unity of our country as the railroad unites the two great oceans of the world.

Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.

Peace is not mere absence of war, but is a virtue that springs from force of character.

Insist on yourself; never imitate.

No country can long endure if its foundations are not laid deep in the material prosperity which comes from thrift, from business energy and enterprise, from hard, unsparing effort in the fields of industrial activity; but neither was any nation ever yet truly great if it relied upon material prosperity alone. All honor must be paid to the architects of our material prosperity, to the great captains of industry who have built our factories and our railroads, to the strong men who toil for wealth with brain or hand; for great is the debt of the nation to these and their kind. But our debt is yet greater to the men whose highest type is to be found in a statesman like Lincoln, a soldier like Grant. They showed by their lives that they recognized the law of work, the law of strife; they toiled to win a competence for themselves and those dependent upon them; but they recognized that there were yet other and even loftier duties—duties to the nation and duties to the race. We cannot sit huddled within our own borders and avow ourselves merely an assemblage of well-to-do hucksters who care nothing for what happens beyond. Such a policy would defeat even its own end; for as the nations grow to have ever wider and wider interests, and are brought into closer and closer contact, if we are to hold our own in the struggle for naval and commercial supremacy, we must build up our power without our own borders. We must build the Isthmian Canal, and we must grasp the points of vantage which will enable us to have our say in deciding the destiny of the oceans of the East and the West.

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.

Ten thousand do not turn the scale against a single man of worth.

The worst lesson that can be taught a man is to rely upon others and to whine over his sufferings.

If you want peace, prepare for war.

Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.

The gentleman understands what is moral. The small man understands what is profitable.

Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe.

It would be better for me... that multitudes of men should disagree with me rather than that I, being one, should be out of harmony with myself.

It would be better for me that the whole world should disagree with me than that I, being one, should be out of harmony with myself.

We are covered by the American banner; let us cling to it, and if required, sacrifice our lives defending it.

In matters of conscience, the law of majority has no place.

Of all the dispositions and habits, which lead to political prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of Men and Citizens. The mere Politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connexions with private and public felicity.