Sir I would rather be right than be President.

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.

World War I was the most colossal, murderous, mismanaged butchery that has ever taken place on earth. Any writer who said otherwise lied, So the writers either wrote propaganda, shut up, or fought.

God’s goal is to establish His righteousness on this earth

The art of simplicity is a puzzle of complexity.

Don't tire yourself more than need be, even at the price of founding a culture on the fatigue of your bones.

The simplest thought, like the concept of the number one, has an elaborate logical underpinning.

I thought of myself as a writer for years before I got around to writing anything.

You don't paint pictures to put them in your attic. You want people to look at them.

We can't own each other's past. The questioin is whether we have a future together.

The ultimate acting is to destroy yourself.

The films that I do are deep, introspective, brooding roles that you're in this heavy headspace all the time.