Elihu Root Quotes

38 quotes in 789 categories

• Gradually, everything that happens in the world is coming to be of interest everywhere in the world, and, gradually, thoughtful men and women everywhere are…
• Men do not fail; they give up trying.
• When a teacher of the future comes to point out to the youth of America how the highest rewards of intellect and devotion can be…
• The wolf always charges the lamb with muddying the stream.
• It is to be observed that every case of war averted is a gain in general, for it helps to form a habit of peace,…
• The framers of the Constitution realized that . . . there needed to be some guardian of the sober second thought, and so they created…
• About half the practice of a decent lawyer is telling would-be clients that they are damned fools and should shut up.
• Human nature must have come much nearer perfection than it is now, or will be in many generations, to exclude from such a control prejudice,…
• There is so much of good in human nature that men grow to like each other upon better acquaintance, and this points to another way…
• Prejudice and passion and suspicion are more dangerous than the incitement of self-interest or the most stubborn adherence to real differences of opinion regarding rights.
• Human life is held in much higher esteem, and the taking of it, whether in private quarrel or by judicial procedure, is looked upon much…
• Honest people, mistakenly believing in the justice of their cause, are led to support injustice.
• Moral disarmament is to safeguard the future; material disarmament is to save for the present, that there may be a future to safeguard.
• The worst, the hardest, the most disagreeable thing that you may have to do may be the thing that counts most, because it is the…
• It is not uncommon in modern times to see governments straining every nerve to keep the peace, and the people whom they represent, with patriotic…
• The law of the survival of the fittest led inevitably to the survival and predominance of the men who were effective in war and who…
• The attractive idea that we can now have a parliament of man with authority to control the conduct of nations by legislation or an international…
• The point of departure of the process to which we wish to contribute is the fact that war is the natural reaction of human nature…
• Cruelty to men and to the lower animals as well, which would have passed unnoticed a century ago, now shocks the sensibilities and is regarded…
• The theoretical postulate of all diplomatic discussion between nations is the assumed willingness of every nation to do justice.

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