Between richer and poorer classes in a free country a mutually respecting antagonism is much healthier than pity on the one hand and dependence on the other, as is, perhaps, the next best thing to fraternal feeling.

Each man must have his I; it is more necessary to him than bread; and if he does not find scope for it within the existing institutions he will be likely to make trouble.

There is hardly any one so insignificant that he does not seem imposing to some one at some time.

To cease to admire is a proof of deterioration.

The general fact is that the most effective way of utilizing human energy is through an organized rivalry, which by specialization and social control is, at the same time, organized co-operation.

So far as discipline is concerned, freedom means not its absence but the use of higher and more rational forms as contrasted with those that are lower or less rational.

To have no heroes is to have no aspiration, to live on the momentum of the past, to be thrown back upon routine, sensuality, and the narrow self.

The need to exert power, when thwarted in the open fields of life, is the more likely to assert itself in trifles.

Every general increase of freedom is accompanied by some degeneracy, attributable to the same causes as the freedom.

To get away from one's working environment is, in a sense, to get away from one's self; and this is often the chief advantage of travel and change.

The mind is not a hermit's cell, but a place of hospitality and intercourse.

The imaginations which people have of one another are the solid facts of society.

A man may lack everything but tact and conviction and still be a forcible speaker; but without these nothing will avail... Fluency, grace, logical order, and the like, are merely the decorative surface of oratory.

An artist cannot fail; it is a success to be one.

As social beings we live with our eyes upon our reflection, but have no assurance of the tranquillity of the waters in which we see it.

Institutions - government, churches, industries, and the like - have properly no other function than to contribute to human freedom; and in so far as they fail, on the whole, to perform this function, they are wrong and need reconstruction.

We have no higher life that is really apart from other people. It is by imagining them that our personality is built up; to be without the power of imagining them is to be a low-grade idiot.

There is nothing less to our credit than our neglect of the foreigner and his children, unless it be the arrogance most of us betray when we set out to "Americanize" him.

We are ashamed to seem evasive in the presence of a straightforward man, cowardly in the presence of a brave one, gross in the eyes of a refined one, and so on. We always imagine, and in imagining share, the judgments of the other mind.

A talent somewhat above mediocrity, shrewd and not too sensitive, is more likely to rise in the world than genius.

There is no way to penetrate the surface of life but by attacking it earnestly at a particular point.

Unless a capacity for thinking be accompanied by a capacity for action, a superior mind exists in torture.

Failure sometimes enlarges the spirit. You have to fall back upon humanity and God.

Between richer and poorer classes in a free country a mutually respecting antagonism is much healthier than pity on the one hand and dependence on the other, as is, perhaps, the next best thing to fraternal feeling.

Our individual lives cannot, generally, be works of art unless the social order is also.

The bashful are always aggressive at heart.

If we divine a discrepancy between a man's words and his character, the whole impression of him becomes broken and painful; he revolts the imagination by his lack of unity, and even the good in him is hardly accepted.

The literature of the inner life is very largely a record of struggle with the inordinate passions of the social self.

One should never criticize his own work except in a fresh and hopeful mood. The self-criticism of a tired mind is suicide.

Prudence and compromise are necessary means, but every man should have an impudent end which he will not compromise.

When one ceases from conflict, whether because he has won, because he has lost, or because he cares no more for the game, the virtue passes out of him.

The idea that seeing life means going from place to place and doing a great variety of obvious things is an illusion natural to dull minds.

There is nothing less to our credit than our neglect of the foreigner and his children, unless it be the arrogance most of us betray when we set out to 'Americanize' him.

To get away from ones working environment is in a sense to get away from ones self and this is often the chief advantage of travel and change.

The mind is not a hermits cell but a place of hospitality and intercourse.

To have no heroes is to have no aspiration to live on the momentum of the past to be thrown back upon routine sensuality and the narrow self.

A cat cares for you only as a source of food, security and a place in the sun.

The passion of self-aggrandizement is persistent but plastic; it will never disappear from a vigorous mind, but may become morally higher by attaching itself to a larger conception of what constitutes the self.

But like the rest of the country, Maine has reached an impasse, for most of the mercury that fouls our skies, waters and land comes from outside our borders.

Education is the cornerstone of our communities and our country.

For a country to have a great writer is like having another government. That's why no regime has ever loved great writers, only minor ones.

The successful establishment of a buffer zone around Fort Carson will provide an example for other bases around the country as we seek to protect the training mission of the U.S. military while preserving critical habitats on our ranges.

Then, in that hour of deliverance, my heart spoke. Does not such a country, and such defenders of their country, deserve a song?

Prosperous farmers mean more employment, more prosperity for the workers and the business men of every industrial area in the whole country.

You look at the whole Human Rights questions, I happened to be there at just the right time when the country was awakening - this goes to the first question you asked - the whole country was awakening to a hundred years of injustice that hadn't been resolved yet.

It may be shocking to some people in this country to realize that, without meaning to do so, they hold views in common with Hitler when they preach discrimination against other religious, racial or economic groups.

So, for example, a country was into recession right after I was sworn in, a dot-com bust had taken place. Then the attacks of September the 11th, and then of course the great financial meltdown in the -the fundamental question facing any presidency is how do you deal with the hand you're dealt?

And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.

The day cold and fair with a high easterly wind: we were visited by two Indians who gave us an account of the country and people near the Rocky mountains where they had been.