The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind.

We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases while the citizens may act only by permission which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history the stage of rule by brute force.

Nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced.

Any people anywhere being inclined and having the power have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable - a most sacred right - a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world.

Washington is a place where politicians don't know which way is up and taxes don't know which way is down.

The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them in parliament.

The genius of our ruling class is that it has kept a majority of the people from ever questioning the inequity of a system where most people drudge along paying heavy taxes for which they get nothing in return.

The government which was designed for the people has got into the hands of the bosses and their employers the special interests. An invisible empire has been set up above the forms of democracy.

Knowledge will forever govern ignorance and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.

The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments.

I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country.

What this country needs what every country needs occasionally is a good hard bloody war to revive the vice of patriotism on which its existence as a nation depends.

The most savage controversies are about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way.

I have only one yardstick by which I test every major problem - and that yardstick is: Is it good for America?

Sarcasm I now see to be in general the language of the devil for which reason I have long since as good as renounced it.

There is no investment you can make which will pay you so well as the effort to scatter sunshine and good cheer through your establishment.

Greek philosophy seems to have met with something with which a good tragedy is not supposed to meet namely a dull ending.

Why do I not seek some real good one which I could feel not one which I could display?

Mankind is not likely to salvage civilization unless he can evolve a system of good and evil which is independent of heaven and hell.

I have one yardstick by which I test every major problem - and that yardstick is: Is it good for America?

We don't have enough support for maternal leave and the kinds of things that some of the European countries do. So we still make it hard on women to go into the work force and feel that they can be good at work but then doing the most important job which is raising your children in a responsible and positive way.

That which is not good for the bee-hive cannot be good for the bees.

The society which scorns excellence in plumbing as a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy: neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.

If you lead a country like Britain a strong country a country which has taken a lead in world affairs in good times and in bad a country that is always reliable then you have to have a touch of iron about you.