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.

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.

All legislation is founded upon the principle of mutual concession.

One’s personal life and work are inseparable.

Only mediocrity can be trusted to be always at its best.

They succeed, because they think they can.

I've always expressed myself best through writing. I've gotten out all of my deepest feelings that way for as long as I can remember.

I can be mean. Not dirty. But very mean.

When you want to make a beginning of a good deed, first prepare for temptations, which will come to you, and don't doubt the truth of that which you do for God.

Free, open love I have looked upon as dog's love. Secret love is, besides, cowardly.

On the whole, life is unfair in the way it works out. It is a game played without an umpire!

I like the way that the history of the tree shapes the tree. There's no distinction between the tree and its history. You can lose yourself in that thought.