Government is a trust, and the officers of the government are trustees. And both the trust and the trustees are created for the benefit of the people.

Courtesies of a small and trivial character are the ones which strike deepest in the grateful and appreciating heart.

Of all the properties which belong to honorable men, not one is so highly prized as that of character.

Let him who elevates himself above humanity . . . say, if he pleases, "I will never compromise"; but let no one who is not above the frailties of our common nature disdain compromise.

An oppressed people are authorized whenever they can to rise and break their fetters.

The Constitution of the United States was made not merely for the generation that then existed, but for posterity- unlimited, undefined, endless, perpetual posterity.

The time will come when winter will ask what you were doing all summer.

It is better to fall short of a high mark than to reach a low one.

Peaceably if we can, forcibly if we must.

I cannot believe that the killing of 2,000 Englishmen at New Orleans qualifies a person for the various difficult and complicated duties of the Presidency.

All legislation is founded upon the principle of mutual concession.

Creativity comes from looking for the unexpected and stepping outside your own experience.

Worrying about the poor is one thing. To contend that equality is necessary for growth is an altogether different and more radical idea.

A discussion should be a genuine attempt to explore a subject rather than a battle between competing egos.

I know it's really square but I'm one of those people who piles on the factor 50 as soon as I'm outside.

My father and mother split and I never saw my father until I was 20, nor did I see much more of my mother.

Only one thing has to matter for everything to matter.

I think my style as far as vocal delivery and even down to the pronunciation of certain words is so deliberate.

You don't think before you do something foolish. You do your thinking afterwards.

Education is the miracle; I'm just the worker.

Why is life at this point in the twentieth century so focused upon the very beginning of life and the very end of life? What about the 80 years we have to live between those two inexorable bookends?