George Washington, as a boy, was ignorant of the commonest accomplishments of youth. He could not even lie.

Men show their character in nothing more clearly than what they think laughable.

Almost everything that is great has been done by youth.

I’ve seen firsthand that being president doesn’t change who you are. It reveals who you are.

Our character is not so much the product of race and heredity as of those circumstances by which nature forms our habits, by which we are nurtured and live.

Human greatness does not lie in wealth or power, but in character and goodness. People are just people, and all people have faults and shortcomings, but all of us are born with a basic goodness.

An honest man is always a child.

Unlike grown ups, children have little need to deceive themselves.

I believe that it is better to tell the truth than a lie. I believe it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe it is better to know than to be ignorant.

Each day is a little life: every waking and rising a little birth, every fresh morning a little youth, every going to rest and sleep a little death.

I have a personal ambition to live my life honestly and honor the true love that I’ve had and also the people I’ve had around me. I want to stay hopeful, even though I get scared about why we’re even alive at all.

Places I’ve lived since then had to have some kind of uniqueness and character about them. And logically Key West, and then Down Island. So, all of that stuff sort of had it’s roots in New Orleans and went crazy.

Honor has not to be won; it must only not be lost.

Virtue is like a rich stone, best plain set.

Part of the inhumanity of the computer is that, once it is competently programmed and working smoothly, it is completely honest.

I never gave anybody hell! I just told the truth and they thought it was hell.

They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it’s not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance.

Not always actions show the man; we find who does a kindness is not therefore kind.

This is not a showman’s job. I will not step out of character.

A good character is the best tombstone. Those who loved you and were helped by you will remember you when forget-me-nots have withered. Carve your name on hearts, not on marble.

When a person cannot deceive himself the chances are against his being able to deceive other people.

Some mystery should be left in the revelation of character in a play, just as a great deal of mystery is always left in the revelation of character in life, even in one’s own character to himself.

It’s not easy being young. It’s hard to know what to do.

Confession of errors is like a broom which sweeps away the dirt and leaves the surface brighter and clearer. I feel stronger for confession.

Truth is mighty and will prevail. There is nothing wrong with this, except that it ain’t so.

As fire when thrown into water is cooled down and put out, so also a false accusation when brought against a man of the purest and holiest character, boils over and is at once dissipated, and vanishes and threats of heaven and sea, himself standing unmoved.

It is with trifles, and when he is off guard, that a man best reveals his character.

The only foes that threaten America are the enemies at home, and these are ignorance, superstition and incompetence.

When you are younger, you want to do everything, and you go haywire.

Younger people have greatest fears. Why is that? Because they don’t know the plot. They don’t know their own individual plot… they don’t know what’s going to happen to them.

To conceal anything from those to whom I am attached, is not in my nature. I can never close my lips where I have opened my heart.

Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters.

Advertising is a racket, like the movies and the brokerage business. You cannot be honest without admitting that its constructive contribution to humanity is exactly minus zero.

Blessed are the young for they shall inherit the national debt.

Where ignorance is our master, there is no possibility of real peace.

A lack of transparency results in distrust and a deep sense of insecurity.

I say there is no darkness but ignorance.

Children are all foreigners.

The truth is rarely pure and never simple.

Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.

Most ignorance is vincible ignorance. We don’t know because we don’t want to know.

Concentration is my motto – first honesty, then industry, then concentration.

Persistence is to the character of man as carbon is to steel.

If anything, I get most upset because I wanna read a good paper first thing in the morning. And if I see a lie about myself flash across the front of the cover, I don’t think much of the rest of the newspaper.

For me, there are two types of people: the young and the experienced.

Our character is basically a composite of our habits. Because they are consistent, often unconcious patterns, they constantly, daily, express our character.

I am afraid that the schools will prove the very gates of hell, unless they diligently labor in explaining the Holy Scriptures and engraving them in the heart of the youth.

People always fear change. People feared electricity when it was invented, didn’t they? People feared coal, they feared gas-powered engines… There will always be ignorance, and ignorance leads to fear. But with time, people will come to accept their silicon masters.

Youth is the period in which a man can be hopeless. The end of every episode is the end of the world. But the power of hoping through everything, the knowledge that the soul survives its adventures, that great inspiration comes to the middle-aged.

The best measure of a man’s honesty isn’t his income tax return. It’s the zero adjust on his bathroom scale.

I’ve laid my friends bare.

I would like to be remembered as a guy who had a set of priorities, and was willing to live by those priorities. In terms of accomplishments, my biggest accomplishment is that I kept the country safe amidst a real danger.

Do you think that when they asked George Washington for ID that he just whipped out a quarter?

If you’re lying, you’re lying.

No public man can be just a little crooked.

At fifty everyone has the face he deserves.

Wherever the invitation of men or your own occasions lead you, speak the very truth, as your life and conscience teach it, and cheer the waiting, fainting hearts of men with new hope and new revelation.

These young guys are playing checkers. I’m out there playing chess.

Let the future tell the truth, and evaluate each one according to his work and accomplishments. The present is theirs; the future, for which I have really worked, is mine.

No man should be in politics unless he would honestly rather not be there.

Youth is a blunder; Manhood a struggle, Old Age a regret.