Human beings will generally exercise power when they can get it, and they will exercise it most undoubtedly in popular governments under pretense of public safety.

There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters

Whatever makes men good Christians, makes them good citizens.

The contest for ages has been to rescue liberty from the grasp of executive power.

The most important thought that ever occupied my mind is that of my individual responsibility to God.

God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it.

The proper function of a government is to make it easy for the people to do good, and difficult for them to do evil.

If all my possessions were taken from me with one exception, I would choose to keep the power of communication, for by it I would soon regain all the rest

The inherent right in the people to reform their government, I do not deny; and they have another right, and that is to resist unconstitutional laws without overturning the government.

Justice, sir, is the great interest of man on earth. It is the ligament which holds civilized beings and civilized nations together.

Falsehoods not only disagree with truths, but usually quarrel among themselves.

Poetry is breathing words that gives a reader pause.

[On Sitting Bull:] The contents of his pockets were often emptied into the hands of small, ragged little boys, nor could he understand how so much wealth should go brushing by, unmindful of the poor.

No one can argue with a testimony, it is not a debatable issue. It is there to be accepted or rejected.

Apparently God takes reception of Holy Communion seriously. Apparently some things are more sacred than politics. Apparently it's all or nothing when it comes to being Catholic.

Master, don't kill me. Let me live - punish me - torture me - but let me live. I can't face God with all those lives on my conscience, all that blood on my hands.

I was performing skin grafts and became interested in why skin wouldn't graft permanently.

How many impressionist painters painted the same damned thing? How many actors have played the same part in renditions of a play or dancers do the same dances.

Great is the person who plants a tree knowing he will never sit under it.

Small talk is the biggest talk we do.

As his country crumbled around him, Fidel Castro's stature diminished abroad and at home.