I am not a very sentimental man; and the best sentiment I can think of is, that if you collect the signatures of all persons who are no less distinguished than I, you will have a very undistinguishing mass of names.

Military glory-that attractive rainbow, that rises in showers of blood-that serpent's eye, that charms to destroy.

When I get ready to talk to people, I spend two thirds of the time thinking what they want to hear and one third thinking about what I want to say.

Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.

Adversity does not make us frail; it only shows us how frail we are.

In the way our Fathers originally left the slavery question, the institution was in the course of ultimate extinction, and the public mind rested in the belief that it was in the course of ultimate extinction . . . . All I have asked or desired anywhere, is that it should be placed back again upon the basis that the Fathers of our government originally placed it upon.

People are just as happy as they choose to be.