Our popular government has often been called an experiment. Two points in it our people have already settled, the successful establishing and the successful administering of it. One still remains, its successful maintenance against a formidable internal attempt to overthrow it.

Never do anything for anyone who can just as well do it themself

If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it.

I laugh because I must not cry, that is all, that is all.

I do not understand that because I do not want a negro woman for a slave I must necessarily want her for a wife. My understanding is that I can just let her alone.

The love of property and consciousness of right and wrong have conflicting places in our organization, which often makes a man's course seem crooked, his conduct a riddle.

Killing the dog does not cure the bite.