The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished; and it would have done somewhat more, if the government had not sometimes got in its way.
Americans never quit.
The American, by nature, is optimistic. He is experimental, an inventor and a builder who builds best when called upon to build greatly.
It is, I think, an indisputable fact that Americans are, as Americans, the most self- conscious people in the world, and the most addicted to the belief that the other nations are in a conspiracy to under-value them.
The people of the United States, perhaps more than any other nation in history, love to abase themselves and proclaim their unworthiness, and seem to find refreshment in doing so… That is a dark frivolity, but still frivolity.
It is in our idleness, in our dreams, that the submerged truth sometimes comes to the top.
We know what we are, but know not what we may be.
Heaven endures and the earth last a long time because they do not live for themselves.