I have an irrepressible desire to live till I can be assured that the world is a little better for my having lived in it.

The privilege of creating and issuing money is not only the supreme prerogative of government, but it is the government's greatest creative opportunity.

An allusion has been made to the Homestead Law. I think it worthy of consideration, and that the wild lands of the country should be distributed so that every man should have the means and opportunity of benefitting his condition.

It has been said that one bad general is better than two good ones, and the saying is true if taken to mean no more than that an army is better directed by a single mind, though inferior, than by two superior ones at variance and cross-purposes with each other. And the same is true in all joint operations wherein those engaged can have none but a common end in view and can differ only as to the choice of means. In a storm at sea no one on board can wish the ship to sink, and yet not unfrequently all go down together because too many will direct and no single mind can be allowed to control.

Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.

I say 'try'; if we never try, we shall never succeed.

With Malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds.