A sure sign of an amateur is too much detail to compensate for too little life.

The Constitution was not made to fit us like a straitjacket. In its elasticity lies its chief greatness.

Scholarship cannot do without literature.... It needs literature to float it, to set it current, to authenticate it to all the race, to get it out of closets and into the brains of men who stir abroad.

The Constitution of the United States is not a mere lawyers' document. It is a vehicle of life, and its spirit is always the spirit of the age. Its prescriptions are clear and we know what they arebut life is always your last and most authoritative critic.

I want the people to love me, but I suppose they never will.

Unless justice be done to others it will not be done to us.

I believe very profoundly in an over-ruling Providence, and I do not fear that any real plans can be thrown off the track. It maynot be intended that I shall be President--but that would not break my heart.