I did not seek greatness. I only sought to fulfill my duties.

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

I hope someday to have so much of what the world calls success, that people will ask me, “What’s your secret?” and I will tell them, “I just get up again when I fall down.

Obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.

Football is like life—it requires perseverance, self-denial, hard work, sacrifice, dedication and respect for authority.

We overestimate the event and underestimate the process. Every fulfilled dream occurred because of dedication to a process.

What this power is I cannot say; all I know is that it exists and it becomes available only when a man is in the state of mind in which he knows exactly what he wants and is fully determined not to quit until he finds it.

Freedom exists not to do what you like but to have the right to do what you ought.

When even one American, who has done nothing wrong, is forced by fear to shut his mind and close his mouth, then all Americans are in peril.

Freedom of men under government is to have a standing rule to live by, common to every one of that society, and made by the legislative power vested in it; a liberty to follow my own will in all things when the rule prescribes not, and not to be subject to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, arbitrary rule of another man.

Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.

As I walked out the door to my freedom I knew that, if I did not leave all the anger, hatred and resentment behind, I would remain a prisoner.

The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free.

No freeman shall be taken, or imprisoned, or outlawed, or exiled, or in any way harmed, nor will we go upon him nor will we send upon him, except by the legal judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.

All tyrannies rule through fraud and force, but once the fraud is exposed they must rely exclusively on force.

If we are to achieve richer culture, rich in contrasting values, we must recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities, and so weave a less arbitrary social fabric, one in which each diverse human gift will find a fitting place.

The progression of emancipation of any class usually, if not always, takes place through the efforts of individuals of that class.

O beautiful for spacious skies, For Amber waves of grain, For purple mountain majesties Above the fruited plain! America! America! God shed his grace on thee And crown thy good with brotherhood From sea to shining sea!

There will be, in the next generation or so, a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them, but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda or brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods. And this seems to be the final revolution.

Liberty without Learning is always in peril and Learning without Liberty is always in vain.

Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore, send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me: I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

I shall work for the Republican party and call on all women to join me, precisely…for what that party has done and promises to do for women, nothing more, nothing less.

If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

You find out the necessity of Liberty as you find out the necessity of air—by not having enough of it.

You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind.

We can do anything we want to if we stick to it long enough.

Think enthusiastically about everything; but especially about your job. If you do, you'll put a torch of glory in your life. If you love your job with enthusiasm, you'll shake it to pieces. You'll love it into greatness, you'll upgrade it, you'll fill it with prestige and power.

In short, the way to wealth, if you desire it, is as plain as the way to market. It depends chiefly on two words, industry and frugality; that is. waste neither time nor money, but make the best use of both.

Do not think that what is hard for you to master is humanly impossible; but if a thing is humanly possible, consider it to be within your reach.

No ascent is too steep for mortals. Heaven itself we seek in our folly.

I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels. Life's a bitch. You've got to go out and kick ass.