Woodrow Wilson

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

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

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

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.

If a dog will not come to you after having looked you in the face, you should go home and examine your conscience.

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

Absolute identity with one's cause is the first and great condition of successful leadership.

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.

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

Prosperity is necessarily the first theme of a political campaign.

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

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

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

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.

The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty.

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

Caution is the confidential agent of selfishness.

There is no higher religion than human service. To work for the common good is the greatest creed.

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.