- Do the day's work. If it be to protect the rights of the weak, whoever objects, do it. If it be to help a powerful corporation better to serve the people, whatever the opposition, do that. Expect to be called a stand-patter, but don't be a stand-patter. Expect to be called a demagogue, but don't be a demagogue. Don't hesitate to be as revolutionary as science. Don't hesitate to be as reactionary as the multiplication table. Don't expect to build up the weak by pulling down the strong. Don't hurry to legislate. Give administration a chance to catch up with legislation.
- Four-fifths of all our troubles in this life would disappear if we would only sit down and keep still.
- [commenting on the revelation that several members of of his predecessor's cabinet were implicated in the Teapot Dome scandal] Let the guilty be punished.
- [asked what he was thinking when told that President Warren G. Harding had died and he was now President] I thought I could swing it.
- [asked for his reasoning for, when governor of Massachusetts, to fire striking members of the Boston Police Department] There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, any time, anywhere.
- I do not choose to run for president in 1928.
- Patriotism is easy to understand in America. It means looking out for yourself by looking out for your country.
- Collecting more taxes than is absolutely necessary is legalized robbery.
- I have noticed that nothing I never said ever did me any harm.
- If you don't say anything, you won't be called on to repeat it.
- I sometimes wish that people would put a little more emphasis on the observance of the law than they do on its enforcement.
- People seem to think the presidential machinery should keep on running, even after the power has been turned off.
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