I have begun everything with the idea that I could succeed, and I never had much patience with the multitudes of people who are always ready to explain why one cannot succeed.

If I have done anything in life worth attention, I feel sure that I inherited the disposition from my mother.

Progress, progress is the law of nature; under God it shall be our eternal guiding star.

I believe that any man's life will be filled with constant and unexpected encouragement, if he makes up his mind to do his level best each day, and as nearly as possible reaching the high-water mark of pure and useful living.

I pity from the bottom of my heart any nation or body of people that is so unfortunate as to get entangled in the net of slavery.

It is important and right that all privileges of the law be ours, but it is vastly more important that we be prepared for the exercise of those privileges.

Every person who has grown to any degree of usefulness, every person who has grown to distinction, almost without exception has been a person who has risen by overcoming obstacles, by removing difficulties, by resolving that when he met discouragement he would not give up.