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

There are few things wholly evil or wholly good. Almost everything, especially of government policy, is an inseparable compound of the two, so that our best judgment of the preponderance between them is continually demanded.

Sending armies to McClellan is like shoveling fleas across a barnyard, not half of them get there.

At the beginning of the war, and for some time, the use of colored troops was not contemplated; and how the change of purpose was wrought, I will not now take time to explain. Upon a clear conviction of duty I resolved to turn that element of strength to account; and I am responsible for it to the American people, to the christian world, to history, and on my final account to God.

We meet this evening, not in sorrow, but in gladness of heart.

Let us hopethat by the best cultivation of the physical world, beneath and around us; and the intellectual and moral world within us, we shall secure an individual, social and political prosperity and happiness, whose course shall be onward and upward, and which, while the earth endures, shall not pass away.

I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live up to what light I have.