111 Quotes by Stephen Vincent Benét

Let each one of us say, 'I am an American. I intend to stay an American. I will do my best to wipe from my heart hate, rancor and political prejudice. I will sustain my government. And, through good days or bad, I will try to serve my country.'

Yes, Dan'l Webster's dead - or, at least, they buried him. But every time there's a thunderstorm around Marshfield, they say you can hear his rolling voice in the hollows of the sky.

I have fallen in love with American names, the sharp names that never get fat.

You can't depend on the kind of folks people think they are - you've got to go by what they do. And I wouldn't give much for a man that some folks hadn't thought was a fool, in his time.

You can't do business with a man who doesn't know the meaning of a contract. You can't do business with a firm who swears they'll do one thing one day and does just the opposite the next. You can't do business with a company who takes your goods on a cash basis and then pays you off in bum harmonicas.

We can no longer take our own way of life for granted - we know that it may be challenged. And we know this, too - and know it ever more deeply - we know that freedom and democracy are not just big words mouthed by orators but the rain and the wind and the sun, the air and the light by which we breathe and live.

Let us be bold enough and free enough to follow the great examples - the men of good will and honor who put aside little ways and petty hatreds to build the American dream.

Treat a boy like a fool and he'll act like a fool, I say, but there's some folks need convincing.

We cannot afford the creeping paralysis that destroys the effective will of democracy - the paralysis carried by hate and rancor, between class and class, person and person, party and party, as plague is carried through the streets of a town.