Good government is the outcome of private virtue.

The fact that a man is to vote forces him to think. You may preach to a congregation by the year and not affect its thought because it is not called upon for definite action. But throw your subject into a campaign and it becomes a challenge.

The men and woman who make the best boon companions seem to have given up hope of doing something else...some defect of talent or opportunity has cut them off from their pet ambition and has thus left them with leisure to take an interest in their lives of others. Your ambition may be, it makes him keep his thoughts at home. But the heartbroken people - if I may use the word in a mild, benevolent sense - the people whose wills are subdued to fate, give us consolation, recognition, and welcome.

The reason for the slow progress of the world seems to lie in a single fact. Every man is born under the yoke, and grows up beneath the oppressions of his age.

So long as there is any subject which men may not freely discuss, they are timid upon all subjects.

A vision of truth which does not call upon us to get out of our armchair - why, this is the desideratum of mankind.

Everybody in America is soft, and hates conflict. The cure for this, both in politics and social life, is the same - hardihood. Give them raw truth.