While my friend was my friend, he flattered me, and I never heard the truth from him. When he became my enemy, he shot it to me on a poisoned arrow.

No man with a genius for legislation has appeared in America. They are rare in the history of the world. There are orators, politicians, and eloquent men, by the thousand; but the speaker has not yet opened his mouth to speak who is capable of settling the much-vexed questions of the day. We love eloquence for its own sake, and not for any truth which it may utter, or any heroism it may inspire. Our legislators have not yet learned the comparative value of free trade and of freedom, of union, and of rectitude, to a nation.

Unless we do more than simply learn the trade of our time, we are but apprentices, and not yet masters of the art of life.

What I began by reading, I must finish by acting.

I am a majority of one.

When we walk, we naturally go to the fields and woods: what would become of us, if we walked only in a garden or a mall?

To him whose elastic and vigorous thought keeps pace with the sun, the day is a perpetual morning.