No free people can lose their liberties while they are jealous of liberty. But the liberties of the freest people are in danger when they set up symbols of liberty as fetishes, worshipping the symbol instead of the principle it represents.

It is but the littleness of man that seeth no greatness in trifles.

Government is only a necessary evil, like other go-carts and crutches. Our need of it shows exactly how far we are still children. All governing overmuch kills the self-help and energy of the governed.

Great political questions stir the deepest nature of one-half the nation, but they pass far above and over the heads of the other half.

Our agitation, you know, helps keep yours alive in the rank and file.

There is nothing stronger than human prejudice. A crazy sentimentalism, like that of Peter the Hermit, hurled half of Europe upon Asia, and changed the destinies of kingdoms.

The hand entrusted with power becomes, either from human depravity or esprit de corps, the necessary enemy of the people