Man did not weave the web of life. He is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web he does to himself.

Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.

I define love thus: The will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth.

I refuse to accept the idea that the “isness” of man’s present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the “oughtness” that forever confronts him.

He who has so little knowledge of human natures as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts.

Before a man can accomplish anything of an enduring nature in the world, he must first of all acquire some measure of success in the management of his own mind.

If a man empties his purse into his head, no man can take it away from him. An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.

You will be as much value to others as you have been to yourself.

Most people are on the world, not in it—have no conscious sympathy or relationship to anything about them—undiffused, separate, and rigidly alone like marbles of polished stone, touching but separate.

Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd.

You cannot possibly have a broader basis for any government than that which includes all the people, with all their rights in their hands, and with an equal power to maintain their rights.

The United States of America is the greatest, the noblest and, in its original founding principles, the only moral country in the history of the world.

Don't be in a hurry to condemn because he doesn't do what you do or think as you do or as fast. There is a time when you didn't know what you know today.

New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common.

There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism… The one absolutely certain way of brining this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities.

A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.

If a businessman makes a mistake, he suffers the consequences. If a bureaucrat makes a mistake, you suffer the consequences.

Man lives in a world of surmise, of mystery, of uncertainties.

If most of us remain ignorant of ourselves, it is because self-knowledge is painful and we prefer the pleasures of illusion.

All that was great in the past was ridiculed, condemned, combated, suppressed — only to emerge all the more powerfully, all the more triumphantly from the struggle.

The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.

Racism must be opposed by all means that humanity has at its disposal.

Since men are neither omniscient nor infallible, they must be free to agree or disagree, to cooperate or to pursue their own independent course, each according to his own rational judgment. Freedom is the fundamental requirement of man's mind.

A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.

All winning teams are goal-oriented. Teams like these win consistently because everyone connected with them concentrates on specific objectives. They go about their business with blinders on; nothing will distract them from achieving their aims.