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!

To change your mind and to follow him who sets you straight is to be nonetheless the free agent that you were before.

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.

They [the Americans] have all a lively faith in the perfectibility of man, they judge that the diffusion of knowledge must necessarily be advantageous, and the consequences of ignorance fatal; they all consider society as a body in a state of improvement, humanity as a changing scene, in which nothing is, or ought to be, permanent; and they admit that what appears to them today to be good, may be superseded by something better tomorrow.

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.

Man is a mental being, and to know this is the first step on the road to freedom, for as long as you believe yourself to be primarily physical, you will remain in bondage, that is to say, to your own habits of thought, for there is no other bondage.

Freedom is what we do with what is done to us.

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

Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time; the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence.

Either you will control your government, or government will control you.

You must love in such a way that the person you love feels free.

Loyalty to country always. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.

Appreciation is the highest form of prayer, for it acknowledges the presence of good wherever you shine the light of your thankful thoughts.

If you have overcome your inclination and not been overcome by it, you have reason to rejoice.

Any one thing in creation is sufficient to demonstrate a Providence to a humble and grateful mind.

A kind heart is a fountain of gladness, making everything in its vicinity freshen into smiles.

There are two ways to get enough: One is to continue to accumulate more and more. The other is to desire less.

A primary object should be the education of our youth in the science of government. In a republic, what species of knowledge can be equally important? And what duty more pressing than communicating it to those who are to be the future guardians of the liberties of the country.

There are two ways to conquer and enslave a country. One is by the sword. The other is by debt.

You educate a man; you educate a man. You educate a woman; you educate a generation.

Those who would administer wisely must, indeed, be wise, for one of the serious obstacles in the improvement of our race is indiscriminate charity.

Almost every significant breakthrough is the result of a courageous break with traditional ways of thinking.

America’s abundance was not created by public sacrifices to the “common good,” but by the productive genius of free men who pursued their own personal interests and the making of their own private fortunes.

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what they are going to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.

We know of no culture that has said, articulately, that there is no difference between men and women except in the way they contribute to the creation of the next generation.

...the individual ceases to be himself; he adopts entirely the kind of personality offered to him by cultural patterns; and he therefore becomes exactly as all others are and as they expect him to be...The person who gives up his individual self and becomes an automaton, identical with millions of other automatons around him, need not feel alone and anxious any more. But the price he pays, however, is high; it is the loss of his self.

The strength and power of a country depends absolutely on the quantity of good men and women in it.

It is not reason which is the guide of life, but custom.

In this age, the man who dares to think for himself and to act independently does a service to his race.