Discipline is choosing between what you want now, and what you want most.

As the chief speaker at the dedication of the national cemetery at the Gettysburg Battlefield, statesman Edward Everett wrote to Lincoln: I should be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion in two hours as you did in two minutes.

I was losing interest in politics, when the repeal of the Missouri Compromise aroused me again. What I have done since then is pretty well known.

As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew.

My politics are short and sweet, like the old woman's dance.

Persuasion, kind, unassuming persuasion, should be adopted to influence the conduct of men. The opposite course would be a reversal of human nature, which is God's decree and can never be reversed.

I hold, that in contemplation of universal law, and of the Constitution, the Union of these States is perpetual.