I have always noticed in politics how often men are ruined by having too good a memory.

The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.

Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.

Despotism often presents itself as the repairer of all the ills suffered, the support of just rights, defender of the oppressed, and founder of order.

It is easier for the world to accept a simple lie than a complex truth.

There are many men of principle in both parties in America, but there is no party of principle.

A democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it.

There is no country in the world in which everything can be provided for by the laws, or in which political institutions can prove a substitute for common sense and public morality.

Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith.

In the United States, the majority undertakes to supply a multitude of ready-made opinions for the use of individuals, who are thus relieved from the necessity of forming opinions of their own.

I do not know if the people of the United States would vote for superior men if they ran for office, but there can be no doubt that such men do not run.

The Bloody-Nine opened his mouth, and shrieked out all of his bottomless love and his endless hate in one long wail.

Much as a teacher may wince at the thought, he is also an entertainer—for unless he can hold his audience, he cannot really instruct or edify them.

Only the tame birds have a longing. The wild ones fly

If virtue accompany it, it is the heart's paradise; if vice associate it, it is the soul's purgatory.

What furniture can give such finish to a room as a tender woman's face? And is there any harmony of tints that has such stirring of delight as the sweet modulation of her voice?

I mean, the radical contingency that is - that exists and the fact that I'm going into the streets and finding random strangers any given day - who's in these streets that day?

The best way to catch my attention is to throw a Twinkie near my face.

Our founding fathers started this country and built it on God and His Word, and this country sure would be a better place to live and raise our children if we still followed their ideals and beliefs.

Fantasy-based ideologies invariably have neat happy endings where all the bad people and all the bad behavior goes away when the volume is turned up and enough force is applied.

One good thing the teaching has given me is the ability to read and revise my own work.