What is the essence of America? Finding and maintaining that perfect, delicate balance between freedom "to" and freedom "from."

I have one yardstick by which I test every major problem-and that yardstick is: Is it good for America?

Americans, indeed all free men, remember that in the final choice a soldier's pack is not so heavy a burden as a prisoner's chains

I earnestly pray that the Omnipotent Being who has not deserted the cause of America in the hour of its extremest hazard, will never yield so fair a heritage of freedom a prey to "Anarchy" or "Despotism"

What is the essence of America? Finding and maintaining that perfect, delicate balance between freedom 'to' and freedom 'from.'

America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense, it is the other way around. Human rights invented America.