“A nation’s greatness lies in its possibility of achievement in the present, and nothing helps it more than the consciousness of achievement in the past.”

American Ideals
1897

“The greatest possible good can be done by the extension of a helping hand at the right moment, but the attempt to carry any one permanently can end in nothing but harm.”

Century
October 1900

“The vital thing for the nation no less than the individual to remember is that, while dreaming and talking both have their uses, these uses must chiefly exist in seeing the dream realized and the talk turned into action.”

Stafford Little Lecture at Princeton University,
November 1917

“We call to mind the deaths of those who died that the nation might live, who wagered all that life holds dear for the great prize of death in battle.”

Remarks on Memorial Day
Arlington, Virginia, May 30, 1902

“Under our form of government voting is not merely a right but a duty, and, moreover, a fundamental and necessary duty if a man is to be a good citizen.”

Seventh Annual Message
December 3, 1907

“Let us remember that words count only when they give expression to deeds or are to be translated into them.”

Speech to the Nobel Prize Committee
1910

“No man, not even the soldier who does his duty, stands quite on the level with the wife and mother who has done her duty.”

The Outlook
April 8, 1911

“In our government we cannot permanently succeed unless the people really do rule.”

Address in St. Louis, Missouri
March 28, 1912

“We, here in America, hold in our hands the hope of the world, the fate of the coming years; and shame and disgrace will be ours if in our eyes the light of high resolve is dimmed, if we trail in the dust the golden hopes of men.”

New York City
March 20, 1912

“The least desirable of all taxes is the tax which bears heavily upon the honest as compared with the dishonest man.”

Seventh Annual Message
December 3, 1907

“The whole problem of taxation is now, as it has been at almost all times and in almost all places, one of extreme difficulty.”

Annual Message as Governor
January 3, 1900