The Constitution and the laws are supreme and the Union indissoluble.

It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their own selfish purposes.

After eight years as President I have only two regrets: that I have not shot Henry Clay or hanged John C. Calhoun.

Any man worth his salt will stick up for what he believes right, but it takes a slightly better man to acknowledge instantly and without reservation that he is in error.

John Calhoun, if you secede from my nation I will secede your head from the rest of your body.

I was born for a storm and a calm does not suit me.

There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses.

Peace, above all things, is to be desired, but blood must sometimes be spilled to obtain it on equable and lasting terms.

When you get in debt you become a slave.

But you must remember, my fellow-citizens, that eternal vigilance by the people is the price of liberty, and that you must pay the price if you wish to secure the blessing.

All the rights secured to the citizens under the Constitution are worth nothing, and a mere bubble, except guaranteed to them by an independent and virtuous Judiciary.

If you can't find good friends to surround yourself with, then by all means be on your own. Bad friends corrupt good minds.

All your Western theologies, the whole mythology of them, are based on the concept of God as a senile delinquent

Gold is the most useless thing in the world. I am not interested in money but in the things of which money is merely a symbol.

What you have to do, you do with play. The universe is God’s play.

I warn't never meant to be a lady, I know that now. I got streaks of wildness in me that trip me up every time, and just like streaks in clothes, there's some dirt that just won't wash out.

She looks just as music sounds, I think,' answered Anne.

Whatever the country, whatever the culture, whatever the time, when you become a big enough organization, you start to collapse and slow down.

Adversity is the midwife of genius

Quantum mechanics, with its leap into statistics, has been a mere palliative for our ignorance

Any time I got in emotional turmoil, I felt sick all the time, like at any minute I would die.