Great thoughts speak only to the thoughtful mind, but great actions speak to all mankind.

The boy who is going to make a great man must not make up his mind merely to overcome a thousand obstacles, but to win in spite of a thousand repulses and defeats.

No man is worth his salt who is not ready at all times to risk his well-being, to risk his body, to risk his life, in a great cause.

Rhetoric is a poor substitute for action, and we have trusted only to rhetoric. If we are really to be a great nation, we must not merely talk we must act big.

If there is not the war, you don't get the great general if there is not a great occasion, you don't get a great statesman if Lincoln had lived in a time of peace, no one would have known his name.