Woodrow Wilson

America was established not to create wealth but to realize a vision, to realize an ideal - to discover and maintain liberty among men.

When I give a man an office, I watch him carefully to see whether he is swelling or growing.

Democracy is not so much a form of government as a set of principles.

Interest does not tie nations together; it sometimes separates them. But sympathy and understanding does unite them.

As compared with the college politician, the real article seems like an amateur.

There is little for the great part of the history of the world except the bitter tears of pity and the hot tears of wrath.

It is like writing history with lightning and my only regret is that it is all so terribly true.

America is not anything if it consists of each of us. It is something only if it consists of all of us.

If there are men in this country big enough to own the government of the United States, they are going to own it.

He is not a true man of the world who knows only the present fashions of it.

There are blessed intervals when I forget by one means or another that I am President of the United States.

If you think too much about being re-elected, it is very difficult to be worth re-electing.

Every man who takes office in Washington either grows or swells, and when I give a man an office, I watch him carefully to see whether he is growing or swelling.

By 'radical,' I understand one who goes too far; by 'conservative', one who does not go far enough; by 'reactionary', one who won't go at all.

Politics I conceive to be nothing more than the science of the ordered progress of society along the lines of greatest usefulness and convenience to itself.

Prosperity is necessarily the first theme of a political campaign.

I would rather belong to a poor nation that was free than to a rich nation that had ceased to be in love with liberty.

Sometimes people call me an idealist. Well, that is the way I know I am an American. America is the only idealistic nation in the world.

America lives in the heart of every man everywhere who wishes to find a region where he will be free to work out his destiny as he chooses.

I have come slowly into possession of such powers as I have. I receive the opinions of my day. I do not conceive them. But I receive them into a vivid mind.

My dream of politics all my life has been that it is the common business, that it is something we owe to each other to understand and discuss with absolute frankness.

Princeton is no longer a thing for Princeton men to please themselves with. Princeton is a thing with which Princeton men must satisfy the country.

My own ideals for the university are those of a genuine democracy and serious scholarship. These two, indeed, seem to go together.

Generally young men are regarded as radicals. This is a popular misconception. The most conservative persons I ever met are college undergraduates. The radicals are the men past middle life.

I will not speak with disrespect of the Republican Party. I always speak with respect of the past.

What we seek is the reign of law, based upon the consent of the governed and sustained by the organized opinion of mankind.

The awakening of the people of China to the possibilities under free government is the most significant, if not the most momentous, event of our generation.

The world is not looking for servants, there are plenty of these, but for masters, men who form their purposes and then carry them out, let the consequences be what they may.

The question of armaments, whether on land or sea, is the most immediately and intensely practical question connected with the future fortunes of nations and of mankind.

I am not sure that it is of the first importance that you should be happy. Many an unhappy man has been of deep service to himself and to the world.

Property as compared with humanity, as compared with the red blood in the American people, must take second place, not first place.

The only use of an obstacle is to be overcome. All that an obstacle does with brave men is, not to frighten them, but to challenge them.

We have not given science too big a place in our education, but we have made a perilous mistake in giving it too great a preponderance in method in every other branch of study.

Business underlies everything in our national life, including our spiritual life. Witness the fact that in the Lord's Prayer, the first petition is for daily bread. No one can worship God or love his neighbor on an empty stomach.

The history of liberty is a history of resistance.

I not only use all the brains that I have, but all that I can borrow.

One cool judgment is worth a thousand hasty counsels. The thing to do is to supply light and not heat.

The man who is swimming against the stream knows the strength of it.

If you want to make enemies, try to change something.

That a peasant may become king does not render the kingdom democratic.

Never attempt to murder a man who is committing suicide.

I would rather lose in a cause that will some day win, than win in a cause that will some day lose.

At every crisis in one's life, it is absolute salvation to have some sympathetic friend to whom you can think aloud without restraint or misgiving.

The method of political science is the interpretation of life; its instrument is insight, a nice understanding of subtle, unformulated conditions.

The ear of the leader must ring with the voices of the people.

So far as the colleges go, the sideshows are swallowing up the circus.

Tell me what is right and I will fight for it.

The American Revolution was a beginning, not a consummation.

Caution is the confidential agent of selfishness.

There can be no equality or opportunity if men and women and children be not shielded in their lives from the consequences of great industrial and social processes which they cannot alter, control, or singly cope with.