The old idea of a good bargain was a transaction in which one man got the better of another. The new idea of a good contract is a transaction which is good for both parties to it.
The greatest menace to freedom is an inert people.
It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears.
The US States are our laboratories of democracy.
The most important thing we do is not doing.
I abhor averages. I like the individual case. A man may have six meals one day and none the next, making an average of three meals per day, but that is not a good way to live.
Democracy is moral before it is political.
There are no shortcuts in evolution.
In business, the earning of profit is something more than an incident of success. It is an essential condition of success. It is an essential condition of success because the continued absence of profit itself spells failure.
The world presents enough problems if you believe it to be a world of law and order; do not add to them by believing it to be a world of miracles.
If you would only recognize that life is hard, things would be so much easier for you.
We gain nothing by trading the tyranny of capital for the tyranny of labor.
In a democracy, the most important office is the office of citizen.
Strong responsible unions are essential to industrial fair play. Without them the labor bargain is wholly one-sided.
At the foundation of our civil liberties lies the principle that denies to government officials an exceptional position before the law and which subjects them to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen.
The best of wages will not compensate for excessively long working hours which undermine heath.
Ways may someday be developed by which the government, without removing papers from secret drawers, can reproduce them in court, and by which it will be enabled to expose to a jury the most intimate occurrences of the home.
People fear witches, and burn women.
Neutrality is at times a graver sin than belligerence.
I rise early because no day is long enough for a day’s work.