Weak men cannot handle power. It will either crush them, or they will use it to crush others

Power in defense of freedom is greater than power in behalf of tyranny and oppression.

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.

Great occasions do not make heroes or cowards; they simply unveil them to the eyes of men. Silently and perceptibly, as we wake or sleep, we grow strong or weak; and last some crisis shows what we have become.

There is no honor in cruelty.

You can't retire to weakness -- you've got to learn to control strength.