Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.

If a man will stand up and assert, and repeat and re-assert, that two and two do not make four, I know nothing in the power of argument that can stop him.

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.

Few can be induced to labor exclusively for posterity - Posterity has done nothing for us

We have, as all will agree, a free Government, where every man has a right to be equal with every other man. In this great struggle, this form of Government and every form of human right is endangered if our enemies succeed.

In a certain sense, and to a certain extent, he [the president] is the representative of the people. He is elected by them, as well as congress is. But can he, in the nature [of] things, know the wants of the people, as well as three hundred other men, coming from all the various localities of the nation? If so, where is the propriety of having a congress?

I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.