Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.
We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.
America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.
The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time.
The most reliable way to predict the future is to create it.
You must remember that some things legally right are not morally right.
Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right.
In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.
It is a sin to be silent when it is your duty to protest.
Elections belong to the people. It's their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters.
You cannot fail unless you quit.
You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry
If you trust, you will be disappointed occasionally, but if you mistrust, you will be miserable all the time.
Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.
Commitment is what transforms a promise into reality.
The best way to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend.
We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.
Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.
To stand in silence when they should be protesting makes cowards of men.
Nothing is stronger than gentleness.
Freedom is not the right to do what we want, but what we ought
You can please some of the people some of the time, all of the people some of the time, some of the people all of the time, but you can never please all of the people all of the time.
Don't interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties.
A day spent helping no one but yourself is a day wasted.
You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.
You can have anything you want, if you want it badly enough.
Discipline is choosing between what you want now, and what you want most.
Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.
Nations do not die from invasion; they die from internal rottenness.
Behind the cloud the sun is still shining.
A statesman is he who thinks in the future generations, and a politician is he who thinks in the upcoming elections.
You cannot build character and courage by taking away people's initiative and independence. You cannot help people permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.
Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.
Be with a leader when he is right, stay with him when he is still right, but, leave him when he is wrong.
When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion.
All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.
Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.
You can have anything you want if you want it badly enough. You can be anything you want to be, do anything you set out to accomplish if you hold to that desire with singleness of purpose.
Our republican system was meant for a homogeneous people. As long as blacks continue to live with the whites they constitute a threat to the national life. Family life may also collapse and the increase of mixed breed bastards may some day challenge the supremacy of the white man.
What kills a skunk is the publicity it gives itself.
Faith is not believing that God can, but that God will.
It often requires more courage to dare to do right than to fear to do wrong.
Hold on with a bulldog grip, and chew and choke as much as possible.
A friend is one who has the same enemies as you have.
Two of my favorite things are sitting on my front porch smoking a pipe of sweet hemp, and playing my Hohner harmonica.
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 should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty – to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.
This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it.
A nation that does not honor its heroes will not long endure.
Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.
