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

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

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.

When you find that a book is poor ... waste no more time upon it.

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.

Life is too short to read inferior books.

The chief practical use of history is to deliver us from plausible historical analogies.