Honesty is the best policy, says the familiar axiom; but people who are honest on that principle defraud no one but themselves.

The chief duty of government is to keep the peace and stand out of the sunshine of the people.

If there is one thing upon this earth that mankind love and admire better than another, it is a brave man, - it is the man who dares to look the devil in the face and tell him he is a devil.

They grow stiff in the joints. They get in a rut. They go to seed.

The civil service can never be placed on a satisfactory basis until it is regulated by law.

..remember that under our institutions there was no middle ground for the negro race between slavery and equal citizenship.

I have seen the sea lashed into fury and tossed into spray, and its grandeur moves the soul of the dullest man; but I remember that it is not the billows, but the calm level of the sea from which all heights and depths are measured.