It is the greatest folly of which a man can be capable to sit down with a slate and pencil to plan out a new social world.

I never have known a man of ordinary common-sense who did not urge upon his sons, from earliest childhood, doctrines of economy and the practice of accumulation.

If America becomes militant, it will be because its people choose to become such; it will be because they think that war and warlikeness are desirable.

Gentlemen, the time is coming when there will be two great classes, Socialists, and Anarchists. The Anarchists want the government to be nothing, and the Socialists want the government to be everything. There can be no greater contrast. Well, the time will come when there will be only these two great parties, the Anarchists representing the laissez faire doctrine and the Socialists representing the extreme view on the other side, and when that time comes I am an Anarchist.

The truth is that cupidity, selfishness, envy, malice, lust, vindictiveness, are constant vices of human nature.

Nine-tenths of our measures for preventing vice are really protective towards it, because they ward off the penalty.

I have lived through the best years of this country's history. The next generations are going to see war and social calamities. I am glad I don't have to live on into them.