The People, though we think of a great entity when we use the word, means nothing more than so many millions of individual men.

California, more than any other part of the Union, is a country by itself, and San Francisco a capital.

The tendency everywhere in America to concentrate power and responsibility in one man is unmistakable.

No government demands so much from the citizens as democracy and none gives back so much.

The ordinary American voter does not object to mediocrity. He likes his candidate to be sensible, vigorous, and, above all, what he calls 'magnetic,' and does not value, because he sees no need for, originality or profundity, a fine culture or a wide knowledge.

No wonder that, when a political career is so precarious, men of worth and capacity hesitate to embrace it. They cannot afford to be thrown out of their life's course by a mere accident.

Life is too short for reading inferior books.