“In fact, to excel in the virtues is to have peace of soul, and vice versa.”
Lord Acton
“(History is) not a burden on the memory but an illumination of the soul.”
"Liberty is not the power of doing what we like, but the right to do what we ought."
“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
"There is no error so monstrous that it fails to find defenders among the ablest men."
Abigail Adams
"Humanity obliges us to be affected with the distresses and Miserys of our fellow creatures. Friendship is a band yet stronger, which causes us to feel with greater tenderness the afflictions of our friends.”
Henry Adams
“A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.”
John Adams
“Abuse of words has been the great instrument of sophistry and chicanery, of party, faction, and division of society.”
"As the happiness of the people is the sole end of government, so the consent of the people is the only foundation of it.”
“Because power corrupts, society's demands for moral authority and character increase as the importance of the position increases.”
“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”
“Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war.”
"Public virtue cannot exist in a nation without private, and public virtue is the only foundation of republics.”
John Quincy Adams
“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.”
“In charity to all mankind, bearing no malice or ill-will to any human being.”
“The magistrate is the servant not of his own desires, not even of the people, but of his God.”
“This hand, to tyrants ever sworn the foe, For Freedom only deals the deadly blow;
Then sheathes in calm repose the vengeful blade, For gentle peace in Freedom's hallowed shade.”
“This is the last of earth! I am content.”
Jane Addams
“Private beneficence is totally inadequate to deal with the vast numbers of the city’s disinherited.”
Joseph Addison
“A man should always consider how much he has more than he wants, and how much more unhappy he might be than he really is.”
Books are “the legacies that genius leaves to mankind, to be delivered down from generation to generation.”
“Sweet are the slumbers of the virtuous man.”
“Unbounded courage and compassion join’d, Tempering each other in the victor’s mind, Alternately proclaim him good and great, And make the hero and the man complete.”
Aeschylus
“All arrogance will reap a harvest rich in tears. God calls men to a heavy reckoning for overweening pride.”
Aesop
“Gratitude is the sign of noble souls.”“It is easy to be brave from a safe distance.”
“Never trust a friend who deserts you at a pinch.”
“There is always someone worse off than yourself.”
“Union gives strength.”
Agathon
“Look not around at the depraved morals of others, but run straight along your course without straying from it.”
Madeleine Albright
“At Ohio State one professorial-looking gentlemen questioned whether America had the moral right to threaten military action against Iraq. It seemed to me obvious that, under the circumstances, it would have been immoral not to confront Saddam Hussein.”“Let them come here to the cracked edges of the world and experience life without “big government. After all, there was no federal income tax in Liberia, no ban on assault weapons in Angola, no bleeding heart judges in Rwanda, no welfare system in Sudan, and no burdensome environmental controls in the Caucasus.”
“There is no political, historical, religious, economic, or ideological justification for willfully murdering innocent people. Such crimes must be opposed by each of us, in every country, on every continent, every day.”
John Peter Altgeld
“No man’s ambition has the right to stand in the way of performing a simple act of justice.”
Henri-Frederic Amiel
“If ignorance and passion are the foes of popular morality, it must be confessed that moral indifference is the malady of the cultivated classes.”“Truth is the secret of eloquence and of virtue, the basis of moral authority; it is the highest summit of art and of life.”
Aristotle
“Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime.”"The best political community is formed by citizens of the middle class…those states are likely to be well administered in which the middle class is large.”
Clement Attlee
“Words at great moments of history are deeds.”
Marcus Aurelius
“Another prays to be rid of his enemy; he should pray against wanting to be rid of him.”“Be like the cliff against which the waves continually break; but it stands firm and tames the fury of the water around it.”
“Be neither the tyrant nor the slave of any man.”
“Be not ashamed to take help.”
“Be not diverted by some people’s faultfinding, nor by their words, but if a thing is good to do or say, do not consider it unworthy of you.”
“Depart then serenely, for he who releases you is also serene.”
“Dig within. Within is the foundation of good, and it will ever bubble up, if you will ever dig.”
“Do not do violence to yourself, my soul!”
“Even the smallest things ought to be designed for an end.”
“Examine men’s ruling principles, especially those of the wise, what kind of things they avoid, and what kind they pursue.”
“For nothing comes out of nothing, just as nothing returns to nonexistence.”
“He is a runaway, who flies from the concerns of society.”
“He is a social outcast, who cuts his own soul off from the one common soul of all reasonable beings.”
“He is injured who abides in his error and ignorance.”
“He who acts unjustly acts unjustly to himself, because he makes himself bad.”
“Help everyone according to your ability and their fitness.”
“I do my duty.”
“I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinion of himself than on the opinion of others.”
“Labor not unwillingly, nor without regard to the common interest, nor without due consideration, nor with distraction.”
“Love mankind. Follow God.”
“Maintain your judgment without arrogance.”
“Make yourself all simplicity.”
“Not only he who does but he who fails to do a certain thing acts wrongly.”
“That to expect bad men not to do wrong is madness, for he who expects this desires an impossibility.”
“The best way of avenging yourself is not to become like the wrongdoer.”
“There is only one fruit of this earthly life, a pious disposition and social acts.”
“What is your art? To be good.”
“When you are offended at any man’s fault, turn to yourself and study your own failings.”
“While you live, while it is in your power, be good."
“Why do you not pray for deliverance from the fear or the desire or the pain, which a thing causes, rather than pray that any of these things should or should not happen?”
Irving Babbitt
“Where there is no vision, the people perish. Where there is sham vision, they perish sooner.”
Francis Bacon
“A little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion.”“A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.”
“Cato said the best way to keep good acts in memory was to refresh them with new.”
“Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtle; natural philosophy, deep; moral, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend.”
“If a man be gracious, and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world.”
“Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man.”
“Virtue is like a rich stone-best plain set.”
Thomas Bailey
“Small minds derive much satisfaction from trying to bring distinguished figures down closer to their mean level.”
Hosea Ballou
“Hatred is self-punishment."
Honoré de Balzac
“The motto of chivalry is also the motto of wisdom; to serve all, but love only one."
Sabine Baring-Gould
“Crowns and thrones may perish, Kingdoms rise and wane, but the church of Jesus, Constant will remain.”
St. Basil
“A tree is known by its fruit; a man by his deeds. A good deed is never lost, he who sows courtesy reaps friendship and he who plants kindness gathers love."
Ludwig van Beethoven
“Divine One thou lookest into my inmost soul, thou knowest it, thou knowest that love of man and desire to do good live therein.”
Ezra Taft Benson
"Pride is concerned with who is right. Humility is concerned with what is right."
Tony Blair
"Before September 11th, I was already reaching for a different philosphy in international relations from a traditional one that has heled sway since the treaty of Westphalia in 1648; namely that a country’s internal afairs are for it and you don’t interfere unless it threatens you, or breaches a treaty, or triggers an obligation of alliance.”"Education is the best economic policy there is."
“For, as the report demonstrates, to tackle the instability, conflict and despair which disfigures too much of Africa and which can fuel extremism and violence, is to help build our own long-term peace and prosperity. It can be done.”
“Freedom , democracy, human rights, the rule of law…are not Western values, they are the universal values of the human spirit. And anywhere, anytime ordinary people are given the chance to choose, the choice is the same: freedom, not tyranny; democracy, not dictatorship; the rule of law, not the rule of the secret police.”
“I fear my own conscience on Africa. I fear the judgement of future generations, where history properly calculates the gravity of the suffering. I fear them asking: but how could wealthy people, so aware of such suffering, so capable of acting, simply turn away to busy themselves with other things? What greater call to action could there be? Did they really know and yet do nothing? I feel that judgement of the future alongside the now. It gives me urgency. It fills me with determination.”
"I want the politics of Britain and of Europe to be based on solidarity, on the common good."
"In the end values and interests merge. If we can establish and spread the values of liberty, the rule of law, human rights and an open society then that is in our national interests too. The spread of our values makes us safer. As John Kennedy put it "Freedom is indivisible and when one man is enslaved who is free?""
"Individuals realise their potential best through a strong community based on rights and responsibilities."
“It is central to everything we stand for - making our nation strong and competitive, enlarging opportunity, building successful families and responsible citizens, and eliminating social exclusion.”
"It is time to move beyond the social indifference of right and left, libertarian nonsense masquerading as freedom."
“It may well be that under international law as presently constituted, a regime can systematically brutalize and press its people and there is nothing anyone can do, when dialogue, diplomacy, and even sanctions fail, unless it comes within the definition of a humanitarian catastrophe. This may be law, but should it be?”
"It shall be a government rooted in strong values, the values of justice and progress and community, the values that have guided me all my political life. But a government ready with the courage to embrace the new ideas necessary to make those values live again for today's world -- a government of practical measures in pursuit of noble causes."
“Just as the terrorist seeks to divide humanity in hate, so we have to unify it around an idea(democracy and freedom)”
"Strong in Europe. Strong with the United States. That should be our goal."
"Success is in our hands. If we resolve to act, we will succeed. If we fail to act, we will betray the future not just of hundreds of millions of children in Africa but that of our own children as well. It is unthinkable that we should do so.”
“The best defense of our security lies in the spread of our values.”
“There can be no excuse, no defence, no justification for the plight of millions of our fellow human beings in Africa today. There should be nothing that stands in the way of our changing it…This is the fundamental moral challenge of our generation.”
On Kosovo: "This is a just war, based not on any territorial ambitions but on values. We cannot let the evil of ethnic cleansing stand. We must not rest until it is reversed. We have learned twice before in this century that appeasement does not work. If we let an evil dictator range unchallenged, we will have to spill infinitely more blood and treasure to stop him later."
"Wherever people live in fear, with no prospect of advance, we should be on their side; in solidarity with them, whether in Sudan, Zimbabwe, Burma, North Korea; and where countries, and there are many of them in the Middle East today, are in the process of democratic development, we should extend a helping hand."
Boethius
“A man content to go to heaven alone will never go to heaven”“As far as you are able, join faith to reason.”
Bill Bradley
“The language of mutual obligation has to be given equal time with the language of rights that dominates our culture.”
Omar Bradley
“We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount.”
Phillips Brooks
“Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men! Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal to your tasks.”
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
“And knowing me perfectly he has entirely loved me.”“The sweetest lives are those to duty wed, Whose deeds, both great and small, Are close-knit strands of an unbroken thread, Where love ennobles all.”
“This man- such a man- Noble he is- his intellect the least of his gifts! His love showed itself to me like a vocation.”
Robert Browning
“Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be.”
William Jennings Bryan
“I am in favor of an income tax. When I find a man who is not willing to bear is share of the burdens of the government which protects him, I find a man who is unworthy to enjoy the blessings of a government like ours.”“I am as sure that there is another life as I am that I am alive today.”
“I come to speak to you in defense of a cause as holy as the cause of liberty-the cause of humanity.”
William Cullen Bryant
“I looked only for goodness of heart, an ingenuous and affectionate disposition, a good understanding, etc., and the character of my wife is too frank and single-hearted to suffer me to fear that I may be disappointed.”
Buddha
"Greed, lust, fear, anger, misfortune, unhappiness all are derived from foolishness. Thus, foolishness is the greatest of all poisons."
Edmund Burke
“But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice and madness, without tuition or restraint.”“Economy is a distributive virtue, and consists not in saving but in selection. Parsimony requires no providence, no sagacity, no powers of combination, no comparisons, no judgment.”
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good [people] to do nothing.”
“There is but one law for all, namely that law which governs all law, the law of our Creator, the law of humanity, justice, equity-the law of nature, and of nations.”
“Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment: and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.”
Leo Buscaglia
“Perfect love is rare indeed - for to be a lover will require that you continually have the subtlety of the very wise, the flexibility of the child, the sensitivity of the artist, the understanding of the philosopher, the acceptance of the saint, the tolerance of the scholar and the fortitude of the certain.”“Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.”
George HW Bush
“Democracy, human rights, the rule of law, these are the building blocks of peace and freedom.”“Homelessness affects a small proportion of Americans but concerns us all…it’s a national shame.”
“There is no greater peace than that which comes from prayer, and no greater fellowship than to join in prayer with others…All of us should not try to fulfill the responsibilities we now have without prayer and a strong faith in God.”
“We are not the sum of our possessions. They are not the measure of our lives.”
George W. Bush
“For as long as whole regions of the world simmer in resentment and tyranny – prone to ideologies that feed hatred and excuse murder – violence will gather, and multiply in destructive power, and cross the most defended borders, and raise a mortal threat. There is only one force of history that can break the reign of hatred and resentment, and expose the pretensions of tyrants, and reward the hopes of the decent and tolerant, and that is the force of human freedom.”“Freedom and fear, justice and cruelty, have always been at war and we know that God is not neutral between them.”
“Liberty is God’s gift to every human being in the world.”
“So it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.”
“We are a nation of high purpose and restless reform, of child labor laws and emancipation and suffrage and civil rights. . . . We can, in our imperfect way, rise now and again to the example of St. Francis, where there is hatred, sowing love; where there is darkness, shedding light; where there is despair, bringing hope."
“The United States will not stand by and wait for another attack, or trust in the restraint and good intentions of evil men.”
“We are led, by events and common sense, to one conclusion: The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.”
“We have always found our better selves in sympathy and generosity, both in our lives and in our laws. Americans will never write the epitaph of idealism. It emerges from our nature as a people, with a vision of the common good beyond profit and loss.”
“Without America’s active involvement in the world, the ambitions of tyrants would go unopposed, and millions would live at the mercy of terrorists.”
Albert Camus
“Perhaps we cannot prevent this world from being a world in which children are tortured. But we can reduce the number of tortured children. And if you believers don’t help us, who else in the world can help us do this?”
Cicero
“Every good and perfect thing has within itself the seeds of its own destruction through an excess of its virtue.”“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.”
“He who has one virtue has them all.”
“I must remind you, Lords, Senators, that extreme patriotism in the defense of freedom is no crime and let me respectfully remind you that pusillanimity in the pursuit of justice is not virtue in a Roman.”
“The good of the people is the chief law.”
“The short period of life is long enough for living well and honorably.”
“There is nothing so absurd but some philosopher has said it.”
Henry Clay
“Government is a trust, and the officers of government are trustees; and both are created for the benefit of the people.”“The Constitution of the United States was made not merely for the generation that then existed, but for posterity- unlimited, undefined, endless, perpetual posterity.”
Grover Cleveland
Last words: “I have tried so hard to do the right.”“What’s the use of being elected or re-elected unless you stand for something.”
Bill Clinton
“Building a family is the hardest job a man can do, but it’s also the most important.”“Have the courage to speak honestly and frankly, and then…have the discipline to listen quietly with an open mind and an open heart as others do the same.”
“I believe our nation has a higher purpose than to coddle dictators and stand aside from the global movement toward democracy.”
“Law and order is the first responsibility of government.”
“Nothing in the First Amendment converts our public schools into religion-free zones, or requires all religious expression to be left behind at the schoolhouse door”
“Religion is too important in our history and our heritage for us to keep it out of our schools.”
“We all have the right to wear religion on our sleeves. But we should also hold it in our hearts and live it in our lives. And if we are truly to practice what we preach, then Americans of every faith and viewpoint should come together to promote the common good.”
“We can only build strong families when men and women respect each other, when they have partnerships, when men are as involved in the homeplace as women are in the workplace.”
“We must be one, as neighbors, as fellow citizens, not separate camps but family-white, black, Latino, all of us, no mater who different-who share basic American values and are willing to live by them.”
“Whether we like it or not, we are on nation, one family, indivisible. And for us divorce or separation are not options.”
Hillary Clinton
“If rational intelligence is unchecked by feeling for others, it can be used to orchestrate a holocaust, run a drug cartel, or carry out serial murders.”“We must always uphold the idea of our colleges as incubators of ideas and havens for free thought.”
Stephen Colbert
"In my view, all religions are equal in that they're tied for second after Catholicism."
Confucius
“A man is worthy of being a teacher who gets to know what is new by keeping fresh in his mind what he is already familiar with.”“For gentleman of purpose and men of benevolence while it is inconceivable that they should seek to stay alive at the expense of benevolence, it may happen that they have to accept death in order to have benevolence accomplished.”
“He stands to benefit who makes friends with three kinds of people. Equally, he stands to lose who makes friends with three other kinds of people. To make friends with the straight, the trustworthy in word and the well-informed is to benefit. To make friends with the ingratiating in action, the pleasant in appearance and the plausible in speech is to lose.”
“He who gives no thought to difficulties in the future is sure to be beset by worries much closer at hand.”
“If one sets strict standards for oneself and makes allowances for others when making demands on them, one will stay clear of ill will.”
“In serving one’s lord, one should approach one’s duties with reverence and consider one’s pay as of secondary importance.”
“The gentleman enters into associations but not cliques; the small man enters into cliques but not associations.”
“The gentleman is ashamed of his word outstripping his deed.”
“The gentleman is conscious of his own superiority without being contentious, and comes together with other gentleman without forming cliques.”
“What the gentleman seeks, he seeks within himself; what the small man seeks, he seeks in others.”
Rene Descartes
“The greatest minds are capable of the greatest vices as well as of the greatest virtues.”
Benjamin Disraeli
“A government should recognize intellect. It elevates and sustains the tone of a nation.”“A university should be a place of light, of liberty, and of learning.”
“It is much easier to be critical than to be correct.”
“To be conscious that you are ignorant is great step to knowledge.”
John Foster Dulles
“I am convinced that we here need to make our political thoughts and practices reflect more faithfully a religious faith that man has his origin and destiny in God.”“Of all the tasks of government, the most basic is to protect its citizens against violence.”
Albert Einstein
"My religion consists of a humble admiration of the unlimitable superior who reveals Himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds. That deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God.""Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."
"What is the meaning of human life, or of organic life altogether? To answer this question at all implies a religion. Is there any sense then, you ask, in putting it? I answer, the man who regards his own life and that of his fellow creatures as meaningless is not merely unfortunate but almost disqualified for life."
Dwight Eisenhower
“A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.”“America’s vital interests are worldwide, embracing both hemispheres and every continent.”
“Don’t join the book burners. Don’t think you are going to conceal thoughts by concealing evidence that they ever existed.”
“We live…in a sea of semantic disorder in which old labels no longer faithfully describe. Police states are called “people’s democracies”. Armed conquest of free people is called “liberation”.
“Whatever America hopes to bring to pass in the world must first come to pass in the hearts of America.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
“A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him, I may think aloud.”“For it is the rule of the universe that corn shall serve man, and not man corn.”
“I wish to see America not like the old powers of the earth, grasping, exclusive, and narrow, but a benefactor, such as no country ever was, hospitable to all nations, legislating for all nationalities. Nations were made to help each other as much as families were; and all advancement is by ideas, and not by brute force or mechanic force.”
“Knowledge is the antidote to fear.”
“Of no use are the men who study to do exactly as was done before, who can never understand that to-day is a new day.”
“Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.”
“The end of all political struggle is to establish morality as the basis of all legislation.”
“The only way to have a friend is to be one.”
“The reward of a thing well done is to have done it.”
“The true test of civilization is, not the census, nor the size of cities, nor the crops-no, but the kind of man the country turns out.”
“We want men of original perception and original action who can open their eyes wider than to a nationality- namely, to considerations of benefit to the human race- can act in the interest of civilization; men of elastic, men of moral mind, who can live in the moment and take a step forward.”
Desiderius Erasmus
“By freedom of the will we understand in this connection the power of the human will whereby man can apply to or turn away from that which leads unto eternal salvation.”“He who allows oppression shares the crime.”
“Just as a mariner steering his ship safely through a heavy storm into port does not say, ‘I have saved my ship,’ but rather ‘God has saved it’. Nevertheless his art and zeal were not idle.”
Euripides
“Waste not fresh tears over old griefs.”“When good men die their goodness does not perish, But lives though they are gone. As for the bad, All that was theirs dies and is buried with them.”
Millard Fillmore
“Let us remember that revolutions do not always establish freedom.”
Gerald Ford
“Our Constitution works. Our great republic is a government of laws and not of men.”
Ben Franklin
“Diligence is the mother of good luck.”“God helps them that help themselves.”
“To be proud of knowledge is to be blinded with light.”
“The most acceptable service of God is the doing of good to man.”
“Well done is better than well said.”
Mohandas Gandhi
“Be the change you want to see in the world.”“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.”
“If I have the belief I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning.”
“Seven blunders of the world that lead to violence: wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, politics without principle.”
“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”
“When I despair, I remember that all through history, the way of truth and love has always won. There have been murderers and tyrants, and for a time they can seem invincible. But in the end they always fall.”
James Garfield
“For mere vengeance I would do nothing. This nation is too great to look for mere revenge. But for the security of the future I would do everything.”“Next in importance to freedom and justice is popular education, without which neither freedom nor justice can be permanently maintained.”
John Garvey
"The goal of the Catholic university, then, is to unite intellect and virtue, which man’s fallen nature has allowed to drift apart. We engage the whole person and point him or her toward knowledge and true happiness."
William Gladstone
“Remember that the sanctity of life in the hill villages of Afghanistan, among the winter snows, is as inviolable in the eye of Almighty God as can be your own.”“Selfishness is the greatest curse of the human race.”
Andre Glucksmann
“Democracy requires change to function well, because ideas of government need to be refreshed every so often.”
Barry Goldwater
“History shows us, demonstrates that nothing, nothing prepares the way for tyranny more than the failure of public officials to keep the streets safe from bullies and marauders.”“(Freedom) Its enemies are human greed, lust, envy, vanity, and selfishness.”
“Man’s most sacred possession is his individual soul- which has an immortal side, but also has a mortal one.”
“Now, we Americans understand freedom. We have earned it, we have lived for it, and we have died for it. This nation and its people are freedom’s models in a searching world. We can be freedom’s missionaries in a doubting world.”
“We want to have peace; but before that we want to establish the conditions that will make peace tolerable.”
“World opinion didn’t destroy Nazi Germany. World opinion was no match for Soviet tanks in Hungary.”
Alexander Hamilton
“A national debt, if not excessive, will be to us a national blessing.”“For in politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecution.”
“Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society.”
Thomas Jefferson
On Washington, “Never did nature and fortune combine more perfectly to make a man great.”“The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time.”
Lady Bird Johnson
“Children are likely to live up to what you believe of them.”
Lyndon Johnson
“Presidents learn-perhaps sooner than others-that our destiny is fashioned by what all of us do, by the deeds and desires of each citizen, as one tiny drop of water after another ultimately makes a big river.”“The fundamental, longtime American attitude has been to ask not where a person comes from but what are his personal qualities.”
“(The Great Society) is a place where men are more concerned with the quality of their goals than the quantity of their goods.”
“There is a singular quality about Abraham Lincoln which sets him apart from all our other Presidents…a dimension of brooding compassion, of love for humanity: a love which was, if anything, strengthened and deepened by the agony that drove lesser men to the protective shelter of callous indifference.”
“Too many young men and women face long and bitter months of job hunting or marginal work after leaving school. Our society has not yet established satisfactory ways to bridge the gap between school and work.”
Hubert Humphrey
“All of history is a constant struggle for emancipation from fears, from tyranny, from ignorance. And we are the emancipators, that’s what this is all about, even if we don’t recognize it.”“This is a struggle between good and evil, between tolerance and intolerance, over the very nature of man; and we come from a civilization that believes as an article of faith that man is created in the image of his maker, of a spiritual heritage in which human dignity can never be debased or abused by sheer power.”
Jackie Kennedy
“If you bungle raising your children, I don’t think whatever else you do matters very much.”
John Kennedy
“And our liberty, too, is endangered if we pause for the passing moment, if we rest on our achievements, if we resist the pace of progress.”“…And we will persist until we prevail, until the rule of law has replaced the ever dangerous use of force.”
“For we are not developing the nation’s wealth for its own sake. Wealth is the means, and people are the ends.”
“Freedom has many difficulties and democracy is not perfect, but we have never had to put a wall up to keep our people in, to prevent them from leaving us.”
“I am reminded of the story of Marshal Lyautey, who once asked his gardener to plant a tree. The gardener objected that the tree was slow growing and would not reach maturity for a hundred years. The marshal replied, "In that case, there is no time to lose, plant it this afternoon." Today a world of knowledge--a world of cooperation--a just and lasting peace--may well be years away. But we have no time to lose. Let us plant our trees this very afternoon.”
“I speak of peace, therefore, as the necessary rational end of rational men.”
“Is this nation stating it cannot afford to spend an additional $600 million to help the developing nations of the world become strong and free and independent- an amount less than this country’s annual outlay for lipstick, face cream and chewing gum?”
“Just as the Family of Man is not limited to a single race or religion, neither can it be limited to a single city or country.”
“Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.”
"...People everywhere, in spite of occasional disappointments, look to us- not to our wealth or power, but to the splendor of our ideals.”
“The systematic aggression now bleeding that country is not a “war of liberation”, for Vietnam is already free. It is a war of attempted subjugation, and it will be resisted.”
Robert Kennedy
“Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”After being shot: “Is everybody else all right?”
“Justice delayed is democracy denied.”
Jack Kerouac
“Jesus was crucified because, instead of bringing money and power, He only brought the assurance that existence was created by God and it belongs to God the Father, and He, the Father, is going to elevate us to Heaven after death, where no one will need money or power because that’s only after all dust and rust.”“Poets of genius are just decorations on the wall if without the poetry of kindness and Caritas.”
“This means that Christ was right and everybody since then (who ‘thought’ and wrote opposing views of their own) (like, say, Sigmund Freud and his cold depreciation of helpless personalities), was wrong.”
“When God says ‘I Am Lived’ we’ll have forgotten what all the parting was about.”
Martin Luther King Jr.
“Anybody can be great…because anybody can serve. You don’t need to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love.”“Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.”
“I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality.”
"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
“I have a dream that one day in the red hills of Georgia, sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.”
“I want to be the white man’s brother, not his brother-in-law.”
“If a man is called to be a streetsweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep the streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say here lived a great streetsweeper who did his job well.”
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
“Life's most persistent and urgent question is: what are you doing for others?”
“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
“Philanthropy is commendable, but it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice which make philanthropy necessary.”
"Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step."
"The first questions which the priest and the Levite asked was: “If I stopped to help this man, what will happen to me?” But…the good Samaritan reversed the question: “If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?”
“The means by which we live have outdistanced the ends for which we live. Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.”
“The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be…The nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.”
"We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope."
“We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love.”
“We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”
“When you are right, you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong you cannot be too conservative.”
D.H. Lawrence
“When I wish I was rich, then I know I am ill.”
Robert E. Lee
“Above all, do not appear to others what you are not.”“Never do anything wrong to make a friend or keep one.”
C.S. Lewis
“Her absence is like the sky, spreading over everything.”
Abraham Lincoln
“Four score and seven year 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 am not a Know-Nothing; that is certain. How could I be? How can any one who abhors the oppression of Negroes be in favor of degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation we began by declaring that “all men are created equal.” We now practically read it “all men are created equal, except negroes.” When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read “all men are created equal, except negroes and foreigners and Catholics.” When it comes to this, I shall prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense about loving liberty- to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.”
“I know there is a God, and I know he hates injustice. I see the storm coming and I know His hand is in it. But if He has a place and a part for me, I believe that I am ready.”
"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration."
“Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in us. Our defense is in the spirit which prized liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism at your own doors.”
“The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew.”
“Whether or not the world would be vastly benefited by a total banishment from it of all intoxicating drinks seems not now an open question. Three-fourths of mankind confess the affirmative with their tongues, and I believe all the rest acknowledge it in their hearts.”
“With malice towards none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right.”
On slavery as an institution, “You work and earn bread, and I’ll eat it.”
Henri Nouwen
"Although we tend to think about saints as holy and pious, and picture them with halos above their heads and ecstatic gazes, true saints are much more accessible. They are men and women like us, who live ordinary lives and struggle with ordinary problems. What makes them saints is their clear and unwavering focus on God and God’s people.""We often confuse unconditional love with unconditional approval. God loves us without conditions but does not approve of every human behavior. God doesn’t approve of betrayal, violence, hatred, suspicion, and all other expressions of evil, because they all contradict the love God wants to instill in the human heart. Evil is the absence of God’s love."
"What makes the temptation of power so seemingly irresistible? Maybe it is that power offers an easy substitute for the hard task of love. It seems easier to be God than to love God, easier to control people than to love people, easier to own life than to love life."
"When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares."
Barack Obama
“A just peace includes not only civil and political rights -- it must encompass economic security and opportunity. For true peace is not just freedom from fear, but freedom from want.”“And yet too often, these words are ignored. For some countries, the failure to uphold human rights is excused by the false suggestion that these are somehow Western principles, foreign to local cultures or stages of a nation's development.”
"Even those of us with the best of intentions will at times fail to right the wrongs before us."
“Evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies. Negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda's leaders to lay down their arms.”
"For peace is not merely the absence of visible conflict. Only a just peace based on the inherent rights and dignity of every individual can truly be lasting."
"Frederick Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, Williams Jennings Bryant, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King - indeed, the majority of great reformers in American history - were not only motivated by faith, but repeatedly used religious language to argue for their cause. So to say that men and women should not inject their "personal morality" into public policy debates is a practical absurdity."
“I believe that force can be justified on humanitarian grounds, as it was in the Balkans, or in other places that have been scarred by war. Inaction tears at our conscience and can lead to more costly intervention later. That's why all responsible nations must embrace the role that militaries with a clear mandate can play to keep the peace.”
“If human rights are not protected, peace is a hollow promise.”
“If there is a child on the south side of Chicago who can’t read, that matters to me, even if it’s not my child. If there’s a senior citizen somewhere who can’t pay for their prescription drugs, and has to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer, even if it’s not my grandparent. If there’s an Arab American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties. It is that fundamental belief, it is that fundamental belief, I am my brother’s keeper, I am my sister’s keeper that makes this country work. It’s what allows us to pursue our individual dreams and yet still come together as one American family. E pluribus unum. Out of many, one.”
"Let us reach for the world that ought to be -- that spark of the divine that still stirs within each of our souls."
“Now even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters, the negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight, there is not a liberal America and a conservative America — there is the United States of America. There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America — there’s the United States of America. The pundits, the pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I’ve got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don’t like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and yes, we’ve got some gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America. In the end, that’s what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or do we participate in a politics of hope?”
“Only when Europe became free did it finally find peace.”
“Our actions matter, and can bend history in the direction of justice.”
“People don’t expect government to solve all their problems. But they sense, deep in their bones, that with just a slight change in priorities, we can make sure that every child in America has a decent shot at life, and that the doors of opportunity remain open to all.”
“So yes, the instruments of war do have a role to play in preserving the peace.”
“That is the true genius of America — a faith in simple dreams, an insistence on small miracles. That we can tuck in our children at night and know that they are fed and clothed and safe from harm. That we can say what we think, write what we think, without hearing a sudden knock on the door. That we can have an idea and start our own business without paying a bribe. That we can participate in the political process without fear of retribution, and that our votes will be counted at least, most of the time.”
"The non-violence practiced by men like Gandhi and King may not have been practical or possible in every circumstance, but the love that they preached -- their fundamental faith in human progress -- that must always be the North Star that guides us on our journey."
“The United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms.”
“To say that force may sometimes be necessary is not a call to cynicism -- it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason.”
"We do not have to live in an idealized world to still reach for those ideals that will make it a better place."
“We lose ourselves when we compromise the very ideals that we fight to defend.”
"We will bear witness to the quiet dignity of reformers like Aung Sang Suu Kyi; to the bravery of Zimbabweans who cast their ballots in the face of beatings; to the hundreds of thousands who have marched silently through the streets of Iran."
“When we send our young men and women into harm’s way, we have a solemn obligation not to fudge the numbers or shade the truth about why they’re going, to care for their families while they’re gone, to tend to the soldiers upon their return, and to never ever go to war without enough troops to win the war, secure the peace, and earn the respect of the world.”
William Osler
“Nothing in life is more wonderful than faith- the one great moving force which we can neither weigh in the balance nor test in the crucible.”“Throw all the beer and spirits into the Irish Channel, the English Channel, and the North Sea for a year, and people in England would be infinitely better.”
“We are here not to get all we can out of life for ourselves, but to try to make the lives of others happier.”
Pope Benedict XVI
“Faith is not reduced to a private sentiment, perhaps something to hide when it becomes inconvenient, but implies coherence and witness even in the public sphere in defense of man, of justice, of truth."
Franklin Roosevelt
“For the trust reposed in me I will return the courage and the devotion that befit the time. I can do no less. We face the arduous days that lie before us in the warm courage of national unity; with the clear consciousness of seeking old and precious moral values; with the clean satisfaction that comes from the stern performance of duty by old and young alike. We aim at the assurance of a rounded and permanent national life. We do not distrust the failure of essential democracy.”“Governments can err, Presidents do make mistakes, but the immortal Dante tells us that Divine Justice weighs the sins of the cold-blooded and the sins of the warm-hearted on a different scale. Better the occasional faults of a government living in the spirit of charity, than the consistent omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.”
"I am a Christian and a Democrat, that's all."
“I can’t believe that we can fight a war against fascist slavery, and at the same time not work to free people all over the world from a backward colonial policy.”
“Inside the polling booth every American man and woman stands as the equal of every other American man and woman. There they have no superiors. There they have no master save their own minds and consciences.”
"It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach."
“No democracy can long survive which does not accept as fundamental to its very existence the recognition of the rights of minorities.”
“People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.”
“The broadcasting industry has, indeed, a very great opportunity to serve the public, but along with this opportunity goes an important responsibility to see that this means of communication is made to serve the high purposes of a democracy.”
“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
“The United States Constitution has proven itself the most marvelously elastic compilation of rules of government ever written.”
"They are unanimous in their hate for me, and I welcome their hatred."
“We are a nation of many nationalities, many races, many religions-bound together by a single unity, the unity of freedom and equality.”
“We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics.”
“We look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way-everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want…everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear…everywhere in the world.”
Theodore Roosevelt
“A man who envies another admits thereby his own inferiority.”“Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.”
“For wise radicalism and wise conservatism go hand in hand, one bent on progress, the other bent on seeing that no change is made unless in the right direction.”
“I abhor the creature who uses the expression that ‘a man must be a man’ in order to excuse his being a vile and vicious man.”
“If he does not make it the first duty of his life to be an efficient home-maker, a good and loving husband, a wise and loving father, he is a mighty poor citizen.”
“Money-making can never stand on the same plane with other and nobler forms of effort.”
“Moreover, we must insist on the principles of cooperation and the mutual sharing by employer and employee in the gains produced, so that the future prosperity of the great corporations is divided in the most equitable way among all those who participate in creating it.”
“No educated man can afford to be ignorant of the Bible.”
“No man can be a good citizen unless he has a wage more than sufficient to cover the bare costs of living, and hours of labor short enough so that after his day’s work is done, he will have time and energy to bear his share in the management of the community, to help in carrying the general load.”
“No man was worth his salt who did not think very deeply of women’s rights.”
“No nation ever amounted to anything if it did not have within its soul the power of fealty to a lofty idea.”
“The conservation of our natural resources and their proper use constitute the fundamental problem which underlies almost every other problem of our national life.”
“The first requisite of a good citizen in this republic of ours is that he shall be able and willing to pull his weight.”
“The men with the muckrakers are often indispensable to the well-being of society; but only if they know when to stop raking the muck.”
“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
“We desire the peace that comes as of right to the just man armed; not the peace granted on terms of ignominy to the craven and the weakling.”
“We fight in honorable fashion for the good of mankind; fearless of the future; unheeding of our individual fates; with unflinching hearts and undimmed eyes.”
“We ought to admire intelligence and ability; but only when intelligence and ability are controlled and guided by the will to do right.”
Mother Teresa
“Human rights are not a privilege conferred by government. They are every human being’s entitlement by virtue of his humanity.”“If you can't feed a hundred people, then just feed one.”
“People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered; Forgive them anyway. If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives; Be kind anyway. If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies; Succeed anyway. If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you; Be honest and frank anyway. What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight; Build anyway. If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous; Be happy anyway. The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow; Do good anyway.”
“The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.”
“Yours is the one great nation in all of history that was founded on the precept of equal rights and respect for all humankind, for the poorest and weakest of us as well as the richest and strongest.”
Harry Truman
“A man not honorable in his marital relations is not usually honorable in any other.”“Appeasement leads only to further aggression and ultimately to war.”
“Brave men don’t belong to any one country. I respect bravery wherever I see it.”
“Democracy alone can supply the vitalizing force to stir the peoples of the world into triumphant action, not only against their human oppressors, but also against their ancient enemies- hunger, misery, and despair.”
“Do your duty and history will do you justice.”
“For it is all too obvious that if we do not abolish war on this earth, then surely, one day, war will abolish us from the earth.”
“I ask only to be a good and faithful servant of my Lord and my people.”
“I believe in, and I conceive the Constitution of the United States to rest, as does religion, upon the fundamental proposition of the integrity of the individual; and that all Government and all private institutions must be designed to promote and protect and defend the integrity and the dignity of the individual.”
“I believe in the brotherhood of man, not merely the brotherhood of white men but the brotherhood of all men before the law.”
“I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressure.”
“I do want to keep the Democratic Party a party of the people. We can never win unless it is.”
“I have a deep and abiding faith in the destiny of free men. With patience and courage, we shall some day move on into a new era.”
“Merely talking about the Four Freedoms is not enough. This is the time for action. No one can any longer doubt the horrible intentions of the Nazi beasts.”
“No government is perfect. One of the chief virtues of a democracy, however, is that its defects are always visible and under democratic processes can be pointed out and corrected.”
“Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.”
“The responsibility of a great state is to serve and not to dominate the world.”
“The time has arrived for the Democratic Party to get out of the shadow of states’ rights and walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights.”
“The virtue I call courage is not in always facing the foe but in taking care of those at home.”
“We completely defeated our enemies and made them surrender. And then we helped them to recover, to become democratic, and to rejoin the community of nations. Only America could have done that.”
“We must catch up morally and internationally with the machine age.”
“We must declare a new Magna Carta, in a new Declaration of Independence, that henceforth economic well being and security, that health and education and decent living standards, are among our inalienable rights.”
“We shall not relent in our efforts to bring the Golden Rule into the international affairs of the world.”
“What would Jesus Christ have preached if he’d taken a poll in Israel?...It isn’t polls or public opinion of the moment that counts. It’s right and wrong.”
“Win, lose, or draw, people will know where I stand.”
Woodrow Wilson
“America, in her make-up, in her purposes, in her principles, is the biggest thing in the world, and she must measure up to the measure of the world.”“I believe in democracy because it releases the energy of every human being.”
“What was in the writings of the men who founded America- to serve the selfish interests of America? Do you find that in their writings? No; to serve the cause of humanity, to bring liberty to mankind. They set up their standards here in America in the tenet of hope, as a beacon of encouragement to all the nations of the world; and men came thronging to these shores with an expectancy that never existed before, with a confidence they never dared feel before, and found here… a haven of peace, of opportunity, of equality.”
