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

I wish all men to be free. I wish the material prosperity of the already free which I feel sure the extinction of slavery would bring.

What I want is to get done what the people desire to have done, and the question for me is how to find that out exactly.

you can't escape tomorrow's responsibilities by evading it today

If there is no military need for the building, leave it alone, neither putting anyone in or out of it, except on finding some one preaching or practicing treason, in which case lay hands on him, just as if he were doing the same thing in any other building.

The provision of the Constitution giving the war making power to Congress was dictated, as I understand it, by the following reasons: Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This our convention understood to be the most oppressive of all kingly oppressions, and they resolved to so frame the constitution that no man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us.

Killing the dog does not cure the bite.