“The distinguishing feature of our American governmental system is the freedom of the individual; it is quite as important to prevent his being oppressed by many men as it is to save him from the tyranny of one.”

Thomas H. Benton
1887

“Such a body as the Secret Service … is by far the most efficient instrument possible to use against crime. Of course the more efficient an instrument is, the more dangerous it is if misused.”

Message to House of Representatives
January 4, 1909

“Our country has been populated by pioneers, and therefore it has more energy, more enterprise, more expansive power than any other in the wide world.”

St. Paul, Minnesota
September 2, 1901

“If you have an ideal only good while you sit at home, an ideal that nobody can live up to in outside life, examine it closely, and then cast it away.”

Groton Massachusetts,
May 24, 1904

“An independent and upright judiciary which fearlessly stands for the right, even against popular clamor, but which also understands and sympathizes with popular needs, is a great asset of popular government.”

Columbus, Ohio
February 21, 1912

“Conservation means development as much as it does protection.”

Osawatomie, Kansas
August 31, 1910

“The demagogue, in all his forms, is as characteristic an evil of a
free society as the courtier is of a despotism.”

Forum
February 1895

“I believe in making it possible for every man or woman who really desires it to have a higher education, but that this shall be permissive and not obligatory.”

Baltimore, Maryland
September 28, 1918

“It is a great comfort to me to read the life and letters of Abraham Lincoln. I am more and more impressed every day, not only with the man’s wonderful power and sagacity, but with his literally endless patience, and at the same time his unflinching resolution.”

Letter to Kermit Roosevelt
October 2, 1903

“Public welfare depends upon general public prosperity, and the reformer whose reforms interfere with the general prosperity will accomplish little.”

The Outlook
November 18, 1914

“The vital thing for this nation to do is steadily to cultivate the quality which Washington and those under him so pre-eminently showed during the winter at Valley Forge – the quality of steady adherence to duty in the teeth of difficulty, in the teeth of discouragement, and even disaster, the quality that makes a man do what is straight and decent, not one day when a great crisis comes, but every day, day in and day out, until success comes at the end.”

at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania,
June 19, 1904