No man ever saw a government. I live in the midst of the Government of the United States, but I never saw the Government of the United States.

No student knows his subject: the most he knows is where and how to find out the things he does not know

Sometimes people call me an idealist. Well, that is the way I know I am an American. America is the only idealistic nation in the world.

I confess my belief in the common man.... The man who is swimming against the stream knows the strength of it.... The man who is in the melee knows what blows are being struck and what blood is being drawn.

Justice, and only justice, shall always be our motto.

The greatest embarrassment of my political career has been that active duties seem to deprive me of time for careful investigation. I seem almost obliged to form conclusions from impressions instead of from study.... I wish that I had more knowledge, more thorough acquaintance, with the matters involved.

At last a vision has been vouchsafed to us of our life as a whole. We see the bad with the good.... With this vision we approach new affairs. Our duty is to cleanse, to reconsider, to restore, to correct the evil without impairing the good, to purify and humanize every process of our common life, without weakening or sentimentalizing it.