Frontier Spirit Quotes

One of the things that has made America exceptional - compared to other crisis-prone and class-conflicted countries - is that it has long enjoyed a benefit no other modern nation in the world could claim: the ability to engage in ceaseless, endless movement outward.

Only perhaps in the United States, which alone of countries can do without governing,every man being at least able to live, and move off into the wilderness, let Congress jargon as it will,can such a form of so-called Government continue for any length of time to torment men with the semblance, when the indispensable substance is not there.

All the past we leave behind; We debouch upon a newer, mightier world, varied world, Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labor and the march, Pioneers! O Pioneers!

America is therefore the land of the future, where, in the ages that lie before us, the burden of the World's History shall reveal itself.

To boldly go where no one has gone before

The history of this country was made largely by people who wanted to be left alone. Those who could not thrive when left to themselves never felt at ease in America.

If two New Hampshiremen aren't a match for the devil, we might as well give the country back to the Indians.

Every country in the world loved the folklore of the West--the music, the dress, the excitement, everything that was associated with the opening of a new territory. It took everybody out of their own little world. The cowboy lasted a hundred years, created more songs and prose and poetry than any other folk figure. The closest thing was the Japanese samurai. Now, I wonder who'll continue it.

I've always believed that this blessed land was set apart in a special way, that some divine plan placed this great continent here between the oceans to be found by people from every corner of the Earth who had a special love for freedom and the courage to uproot themselves, leave homeland and friends, to come to a strange land. And coming here they created something new in all the history of mankind-a land where man is not beholden to government, government is beholden to man.

Mars is the next frontier, what the Wild West was, what America was 500 years ago. It's time to strike out anew....Mars is where the action is for the next thousand years....The characteristic of human nature, and perhaps our simian branch of the family, is curiosity and exploration. When we stop doing that, we won't be humans anymore. I've seen far more in my lifetime than I ever dreamed. Many of our problems on Earth can only be solved by space technology....The next step is in space. It's inevitable.

We should be most careful about retreating from the specific challenge of our age. We should be reluctant to turn our back upon the frontier of this epoch... We cannot be indifferent to space, because the grand slow march of our intelligence has brought us, in our generation, to a point from which we can explore and understand and utilize it. To turn back now would be to deny our history, our capabilities.

I hope America can also be the cultural leader of the world, and use this frontier spirit to lead and show others that we need courage to go places where we have not gone before.

I suppose there's a melancholy tone at the back of the American mind, a sense of something lost. And it's the lost world of Thomas Jefferson. It is the lost sense of innocence that we could live with a very minimal state, with a vast sense of space in which to work out freedom.

Sorry for the tune up between time, but what the hell, cowboys are the only ones who stay in tune, anyway.

In Wyoming, the beauty of our mountains is matched only by the grit of our people.

When you go back and look at American history, it's not terribly different from Canadian history. If you weren't self-reliant on the prairie, you wouldn't survive.

I feel like a real cowboy! Yippi Ki Yay!

Texans are by nature independent people.

I don't think we should have to do a Mars mission on the basis of hysteria. I think we should do a Mars mission on the basis of a deliberate judgment that what we want to do is open up a new planet for humanity... that we are continuing to be a nation of pioneers.

The West - the very words go straight to that place of the heart where Americans feel the spirit of pride in their western heritage - the triumph of personal courage over any obstacle, whether nature or man.

Had it not been for the Atlantic Ocean and the virgin wilderness, the United States would never have been the Land of Promise.

Space only becomes ordinary when the frontier is no longer being breached.

We invest far off places with a certain romance... Long summers, mild winters, rich harvests, plentiful game; none of them lasts for ever. Your own life, or your bands, or even your species - might be owed to a restless few, drawn by a craving they can hardly articulate or understand, to undiscovered lands, and new worlds.

I died in my boots like a pioneer With the whole wide sky above me.

Go West, young man, go West. There is health in the country, and room away from our crowds of idlers and imbeciles.