Hubert H. Humphrey

Leadership in today's world requires far more than a large stock of gunboats and a hard fist at the conference table.

The essence of statesmanship is not a rigid adherence to the past, but a prudent and probing concern for the future.

It is not enough to merely defend democracy. To defend it may be to lose it; to extend it is to strengthen it. Democracy is not property; it is an idea.

There are not enough jails, not enough police, not enough courts to enforce a law not supported by the people.

I learned more about the economy from one South Dakota dust storm that I did in all my years of college.

National isolation breeds national neurosis.

I learnt more about politics during one South Dakota dust storm than in seven years at the university.

To be realistic today is to be visionary. To be realistic is to be starry-eyed.

Unfortunately, our affluent society has also been an effluent society.

In real life, unlike in Shakespeare, the sweetness of the rose depends upon the name it bears. Things are not only what they are. They are, in very important respects, what they seem to be.

We are in danger of making our cities places where business goes on but where life, in its real sense, is lost.

Propaganda, to be effective, must be believed. To be believed, it must be credible. To be credible, it must be true.

This, then, is the test we must set for ourselves; not to march alone but to march in such a way that others will wish to join us.

For the first time in the history of mankind, one generation literally has the power to destroy the past, the present and the future, the power to bring time to an end.

Asia is rich in people, rich in culture and rich in resources. It is also rich in trouble.

Never answer a question from a farmer.

The difference between hearsay and prophecy is often one of sequence. Hearsay often turns out to have been prophecy.

The Senate is a place filled with goodwill and good intentions, and if the road to hell is paved with them, then it's a pretty good detour.

If there is dissatisfaction with the status quo, good. If there is ferment, so much the better. If there is restlessness, I am pleased. Then let there be ideas, and hard thought, and hard work. If man feels small, let man make himself bigger.

Freedom is the most contagious virus known to man.