Every people has a right to choose the sovereignty under which they shall live.

There is a price which is too great to pay for peace, and that price can be put in one word. One cannot pay the price of self-respect.

The soul of me is very selfish. I have gone my way after a fashion that made me the center of the plan. And you who are so individual, who are so independent a spirit, whose soul is also a kingdom, have been so loyal, so forgiving, so self-sacrificing in your willingness to live my life. Nothing but love cold have accomplished so wonderful a thing.

That a peasant may become king does not render the kingdom democratic.

Energy in a nation is like sap in a tree; it rises from bottom up.

It was necessary to put the South at a moral disadvantage by transforming the contest from a war waged against states fighting for their indepdence into a war waged against states fighting for the maintenance and extension of slavery...and the world, it might be hoped, would see it as a moral war, not a political; and the sympathy of nations would begin to run for the North, not for the South.

Leadership does not always wear the harness of compromise.