Historical voices

But taking place at the time it did, and for the reason that it did, no one could ever make me believe that my mother was guilty of thieving.

He was simply another unfortunate victim of the institution which the Nation unhappily had engrafted upon it at that time.

Gentleness and sweetness unbacked by strength and high resolve are almost impotent for good.

Craft unaccompanied by conscience makes the crafty man a social wild beast who preys on the community and must be hunted out of it.

We must think loftily, and we must also work hard.

We must not only be high-minded, but brave-hearted.

Christianity teaches not only that each of us must so live as to save his own soul, but that each must also strive to do his whole duty by his neighbor.

The Decalogue and the Golden Rule must stand as the foundation of every successful effort to better either our social or our political life.

Each man or woman must remember his or her duty to all around, and especially to those closest and nearest, and such remembrance is the best possible preparation for doing duty for the State as a whole.

But in addition to condemning the grosser forms of evil we must not forget to condemn also the evils of bad temper, lack of gentleness, nagging and whining fretfulness, lack of consideration for others—the evils of selfishness in all its…

The drunkard, the lewd liver, the coward, the liar, the dishonest man, the man who is brutal to or neglectful of parents, wife, or children—of all of these the shrift should be short when we speak of decent citizenship.

We must beware, moreover, not merely of the great sins, but of the lesser ones which when taken together cause such an appalling aggregate of misery and wrong.

Sins against pure and healthy family life are those which of all others are sure in the end to be visited most heavily upon the nation in which they take place.

The man who will not work hard for his wife and his little ones, the woman who shrinks from bearing and rearing many healthy children, these have no place among the men and women who are striving upward and onward.

A man must be a good son, husband, and father, a woman a good daughter, wife, and mother, first and foremost.

In social and industrial no less than in political reform we can do healthy work, work fit for a free Republic, fit for self-governing democracy, only by treading in the footsteps of Washington and Franklin and Adams and Patrick Henry, and…

Woe to us as a nation if we ever follow the lead of men who seek not to smother but to inflame the wild-beast qualities of the human heart!

Envy, malice, and hatred are such passions, and they are just as bad if directed against a class or group of men as if directed against an individual.

The truth is that each one of us has in him certain passions and instincts which if they gained the upper hand in his soul would mean that the wild beast had come uppermost in him.

The vice of envy is not only a dangerous but also a mean vice, for it is always a confession of inferiority.

From the days when the chosen people received the Decalogue to our own, envy and malice have been recognized as evils, and woe to those who appeal to them.

It is far better, for instance, to do well a bit of work which is well worth doing, than to have a large fortune.

There is degradation to us if we feel envy and malice and hatred toward our neighbor for any cause; and if we envy him merely his riches, we show we have ourselves low ideals.

When there is need of a drastic remedy, apply it, but do not apply it in the spirit of hate.