The American President resembles the commander of a ship at sea. He must have a helm to grasp, a course to steer, a port to seek.

Power is poison. Its effect on Presidents has been always tragic, chiefly as an almost indecent excitement at first, and a worse reaction afterwards; but also because no mind is so well balanced as to bear the strain of seizing unlimited force without habit or knowledge of it; and finding it disputed with him by hungry packs of wolves and hounds whose lives depend on snatching the carion.

Unity is vision; it must have been part of the process of learning to see.

My own conclusion is that history is simply social development along the lines of weakest resistance, and that in most cases the line of weakest resistance is found as unconsciously by society as by water.

The new American, like the new European, was the servant of the powerhouse, as the European of the twelfth century was the servant of the Church.

His brothers were the type; he was the variation.

Intimates are predestined.