We shall sooner have the fowl by hatching the egg than by smashing it.

I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true.

The struggle of today is not altogether for today - it is for a vast future also.

Every blade of grass is a study; and to produce two, where there was but one, is both a profit and a pleasure.

If as the friends of colonization hope, the present and coming generations of our countrymen shall by any means, succeed in freeing our land from the dangerous presence of slavery; and, at the same time, in restoring a captive people to their long-lost father-land, with bright prospects for the future; and this too, so gradually, that neither races nor individuals shall have suffered by the change, it will indeed be a glorious consummation.

If I gave McClellan all the men he asked for, they could not find room to lie down; they'd have to sleep standing up.

In my entire life I have only met four "perfect" people... and I disliked them all.