Freedom is not the right to do what we want, but what we ought

At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

The most reliable way to predict the future is to create it.

If you are resolutely determined to make a lawyer of yourself, the thing is more than half done already.

Leave nothing for to-morrow which can be done to-day.

An inspection of the Constitution will show that the right of property in a slave in not "distinctly and expressly affirmed" in it.

A man is about as happy as he makes up his mind to be.