[R]eligion cannot share the material strength of the rulers without being burdened with some of the animosity roused against them.

The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.

Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.

Despotism often presents itself as the repairer of all the ills suffered, the support of just rights, defender of the oppressed, and founder of order.

It is easier for the world to accept a simple lie than a complex truth.

There are many men of principle in both parties in America, but there is no party of principle.

A democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it.

There is no country in the world in which everything can be provided for by the laws, or in which political institutions can prove a substitute for common sense and public morality.

Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith.

In the United States, the majority undertakes to supply a multitude of ready-made opinions for the use of individuals, who are thus relieved from the necessity of forming opinions of their own.

I do not know if the people of the United States would vote for superior men if they ran for office, but there can be no doubt that such men do not run.

Still, he was angry--that particular anger of humans defied by the persistence of nature.

By the way, dancers are not human beings. How can you be human and do what they do?

I never knew that I had an unusual voice. It wasn't something anybody really pointed out to me.

Every good composition is above all a work of abstraction. All good painters know this. But the painter cannot dispense with subjects altogether without his work suffering impoverishment.

One thing that's great about the sax is that you can always get better with the horn and improve upon what you did.

A critical issue for women is the possibility to be a mother and the ability to participate fully in the workforce.

I don't care what anything was designed to do, I care about what it can do.

Over the years, I've made many sacrifices to win two Olympic gold medals and put together winning streaks that will never be broken.

After forty years, with whatever authority comes from lived experience, I can say: You, too, can create something. You can nurture it and watch it grow.

My job isn't to strike guys out, it's to get them out - sometimes by striking them out.