Stephen Vincent Benet There are many trials that seem hard to bear at first which prove true blessings later when we see of what false materials they were first composed. – Stephen Vincent Benet
Stephen Vincent Benet Trouble with women. Can’t do any art and be married if you’re in love with your wife. – Stephen Vincent Benet
Stephen Vincent Benet It is forbidden to go east, but I have gone, forbidden to go on the great river, but I am there. Open your hearts, you spirits, and hear my song. – Stephen Vincent Benet
Stephen Vincent Benet You can’t do business with a man who doesn’t know the meaning of a contract. You can’t do business with a firm who swears they’ll do one thing one day and does just the opposite the next. You can’t do business with a company who takes your goods on a cash basis and then pays you off in bum harmonicas. – Stephen Vincent Benet
Stephen Vincent Benet Let each one of us say, ‘I am an American. I intend to stay an American. I will do my best to wipe from my heart hate, rancor and political prejudice. I will sustain my government. And, through good days or bad, I will try to serve my country.’ – Stephen Vincent Benet
Stephen Vincent Benet We cannot afford the creeping paralysis that destroys the effective will of democracy – the paralysis carried by hate and rancor, between class and class, person and person, party and party, as plague is carried through the streets of a town. – Stephen Vincent Benet
Stephen Vincent Benet Let us be bold enough and free enough to follow the great examples – the men of good will and honor who put aside little ways and petty hatreds to build the American dream. – Stephen Vincent Benet
Stephen Vincent Benet It is hard to put aside partisanship. It is hard to give up the easy wisecracking jeer that divides and destroys. It is hard – very hard – to have worked sincerely and wholeheartedly for a cause and to have lost. Most of all, it is hard to put aside personal prejudices. And yet we must put these things aside. – Stephen Vincent Benet
Stephen Vincent Benet We cannot be a house divided – divided in will, divided in interest, divided in soul. We cannot be a house divided and live. – Stephen Vincent Benet
Stephen Vincent Benet We can no longer take our own way of life for granted – we know that it may be challenged. And we know this, too – and know it ever more deeply – we know that freedom and democracy are not just big words mouthed by orators but the rain and the wind and the sun, the air and the light by which we breathe and live. – Stephen Vincent Benet
Stephen Vincent Benet You call my candidate a horse thief, and I call yours a lunatic, and we both of us know it’s just till election day. It’s an American custom, like eating corn on the cob. And, afterwards, we settle down quite peaceably and agree we’ve got a pretty good country – until next election. – Stephen Vincent Benet
Stephen Vincent Benet Treat a boy like a fool and he’ll act like a fool, I say, but there’s some folks need convincing. – Stephen Vincent Benet
