I regard the inflation acts as wrong in all ways. Personally I am one of the noble army of debtors, and can stand it if others can. But it is a wretched business.

He serves his party best who serves the country best.

I too mean to be out of politics. The ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment gives me the boon of equality before the law, terminates my enlistment, and discharges me cured.

The bold enterprises are the successful ones. Take counsel of hopes rather than of fears to win in this business.

The best hopes of any community rest upon that class of its gifted young men who are not encumbered with large possessions.... I now speak of extensive scholarship and ripe culture in science and art.... It is not large possessions, it is large expectations, or rather large hopes, that stimulate the ambition of the young.

He [William Merritt Chase] is, I suspect, getting a very truthful likeness. I would like it better if [it] was not so gray, so cramped about the eyes, and not quite so corpulent. But is this not quarreling with nature?

The climate of Ohio is perfect, considered as the home of an ideal republican people. Climate has much to do with national character.... A climate which permits labor out-of-doors every month in the year and which requires industry to secure comfort--to provide food, shelter, clothing, fuel, etc.--is the very climate which secures the highest civilization.