The overwhelming majority of Americans are possessed of two great qualities a sense of humor and a sense of proportion.

Brevity is a great charm of eloquence.

The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms like a cuttlefish squirting out ink.

Whoever conquers a free town and does not demolish it commits a great error and may expect to be ruined himself.

A great man is different from an eminent one in that he is ready to be the servant of the society.

Everyone who achieves success in a great venture solves each problem as they came to it. They helped themselves. And they were helped through powers known and unknown to them at the time they set out on their voyage. They keep going regardless of the obstacles they met.

Great is truth but still greater from a practical point of view is silence about truth. By simply not mentioning certain subjects... totalitarian propagandists have influenced opinion much more effectively than they could have by the most eloquent denunciations.

It takes a great man to give sound advice tactfully but a greater to accept it graciously.

Perseverance is a great element of success. If you only knock long enough and loud enough at the gate you are sure to wake up somebody.

Let us not listen to those who think we ought to be angry with our enemies and who believe this to be great and manly. Nothing is so praiseworthy nothing so clearly shows a great and noble soul as clemency and readiness to forgive.

Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers who can cut through argument debate and doubt to offer a solution everybody can understand.

To have a great idea have a lot of them.

Youth is the period in which a man can be hopeless. The end of every episode is the end of the world. But the power of hoping through everything the knowledge that the soul survives its adventures that great inspiration comes to the middle-aged.

There are many of us that are willing to do great things for the Lord but few of us are willing to do little things.

The willow which bends to the tempest often escapes better than the oak which resists it and so in great calamities it sometimes happens that light and frivolous spirits recover their elasticity and presence of mind sooner than those of a loftier character.

Great ideas originate in the muscles.

Where the willingness is great the difficulties cannot be great.