When you make it to the top, turn and reach down for the person behind you.

I fear explanations explanatory of things explained.

Writing, the art of communicating thoughts to the mind through the eye, is the great invention of the world.

A fellow once came to me to ask for an appointment as a minister abroad. Finding he could not get that, he came down to some more modest position. Finally, he asked to be made a tide-waiter. When he saw he could not get that, he asked me for an old pair of trousers. It is sometimes well to be humble.

I can not but hate the prospect of slavery's expansion. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world-enables the enemies of free institutions, with plausibility, to taunt us as hypocrites-causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity.

You cannot have the right to do what is wrong!

Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.