“We welcome leadership, but we wish our leaders to understand that they derive their strength from us, and that, although we look to them for guidance, we expect this guidance to be in accordance with our interests and our ideals.”

– The Outlook, July 9, 1910

“Americanism is a question of spirit, conviction, and purpose, not of creed or birthplace.”

– Forum, April 1894

“To bear the name of American is to bear the most honorable of titles.”

– Forum, April 1894

“My hat’s in the ring. The fight is on and I’m stripped to the buff.”

– Press Conference, 1912

“Honesty and common sense are the two prime requisites for a legislator.”

– Albany, New York, 1883

“The sons of all of us will pay in the future if we of the present do not do justice in the present.”

– Louisville, Kentucky, April 3, 1912

“No nation ever amounted to anything if it did not have
within its soul the power of fealty to a lofty ideal.”

– Berkeley, California, 1913

“When any public man says that he ‘will never compromise under any conditions,’ he is certain to receive the applause of a few emotional people who do not think correctly, and the one fact about him that can be instantly asserted as true beyond peradventure is that,
if he is a serious personage at all, he is deliberately lying.”

– The Outlook, July 28, 1900

“I should heartily despise the public servant who failed to do his
duty because it might jeopardize his own future.”

– Letter of February 21, 1899

“I am an optimist, but I hope I am a reasonably intelligent one. I recognize that all the time there are numerous evil forces at work, and that in places and at times they outweigh the forces that tend for good. Hitherto, on the whole, the
good have come out ahead, and I think that they will in the future.”

– Letter to Owen Wister, February 27, 1895

“Success – the real success – does not depend upon the position
you hold, but upon how you carry yourself in that position.”

– University of Cambridge, England, May 26, 1910