My politics are short and sweet, like the old woman's dance.

I am not in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office.

It's not me who can't keep a secret. It's the people I tell that can't.

How many times have I laughed at you telling me plainly that I was too lazy to be anything but a lawyer.

If you wish to be a lawyer, attach no consequence to the place you are in, or the person you are with; but get books, sit down anywhere, and go to reading for yourself. That will make a lawyer of you quicker than any other way.

Now, and ever, I shall do all in my power for peace, consistently with the maintenance of government.

I was born Feb. 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky. My parents were both born in Virginia, of undistinguished families--second families, perhaps I should say. My mother, who died in my tenth year, was of a family of the name of Hanks.... My father ... removed from Kentucky to ... Indiana, in my eighth year.... It was a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods. There I grew up.... Of course when I came of age I did not know much. Still somehow, I could read, write, and cipher ... but that was all.