The wonders of yesterday are today common occurrences.

It has always been a mystery to me how men can feel themselves honoured by the humiliation of their fellow-beings.

Why has government been instituted? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason & justice without constraint.

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.

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

There is no king who has not had a slave among his ancestors, and no slave who has not had a king among his.

We signal that good can be achieved amongst human beings who are prepared to trust, prepared to believe in the goodness of people.

Two percent of the people think; three percent of the people think they think; and ninety-five percent of the people would rather die than think.

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

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

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

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!

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.

Not in the clamor of the crowded street, not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng, but in ourselves, are triumph and defeat.

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.

Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime.

The change in motion is proportional to the motive force impressed; and is made in the direction of the right line in which that force is impressed.

If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to allow his vision wherever it takes him.

But the bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding go out to meet it.

A man, to carry on a successful business, must have imagination. He must see things as in a vision, a dream of the whole thing. A man can cultivate this faculty only by an appreciation for the finer things in life.

Vision without execution is hallucination.

If the highest aim of a captain were to preserve his ship, he would keep it in port forever.

Let us resolve to be masters, not victims, of our history, controlling our own destiny without giving way to blind suspicions and emotions.

The day will soon come when I will show the world that the transmission of power and speech without the aid of any wires is possible.