We must have no carelessness in our dealings with public property or the expenditure of public money. Such a condition is characteristic either of an undeveloped people, or of a decadent civilization. America is neither.

I sometimes wish that people would put a little more emphasis on the observance of the law than they do upon its enforcement.

Press on nothing can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Perseverance and determination alone are omnipotent.

Wealth comes from industry and from the hard experience of human toil. To dissipate it in waste and extravagance is disloyalty to humanity.

In the discharge of the duties of this office, there is one rule of action more important than all others. It consists in never doing anything that someone else can do for you.

Unless we lay our course in accordance with this principle, the great power for good in the world with which we have been intrusted by a Divine Providence will be turned to a power for evil.

We need more of the Office Desk and less of the Show Window in politics. Let men in office substitute the midnight oil for the limelight.

Don't hesitate to be as revolutionary as science. Don't hesitate to be as reactionary as the multiplication table.

There is far more danger of harm than there is hope of good in any radical changes.

Nature is inexorable. If men do not follow the truth they cannot live.

If you see ten troubles coming down the road, you can be sure that nine will run into the ditch before they reach you.

Economy is the method by which we prepare today to afford the improvements of tomorrow.

I cannot think of anything characteristically American that was not produced by toil. I cannot think of any American man or woman preeminent in the history of our nation who did not reach their place through toil. I cannot think of anything that represents the American people as a whole so adequately as honest work.

Those who trust to chance must abide by the results of chance.

Heroism is not only in the man, but in the occasion.

Patriotism is easy to understand in America -- it means looking out for yourself by looking out for your country.

You don't have to explain something you haven't said.

Character is the only secure foundation of the state.

We have found that when men and women are left free to find the places for which they are best fitted, some few of them will indeed attain less exalted stations than under a regime of privilege; but the vast multitude will rise to a higher level, to wider horizons, to worthier attainments.

That man has offered me unsolicited advice for six years, most of it bad.