In all that people can do for themselves, government ought not to interfere.

I walk slowly, but never backwards.

Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.

It is bad to be poor. I shall go to the wall for bread and meat, if I neglect my business this year as well as last.

The written word may be man's greatest invention. It allows us to converse with the dead, the absent, and the unborn.

Now, at the end of three years struggle the nation's condition is not what either party, or any man devised, or expected. God alone can claim it.

Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.