There are blessed intervals when I forget by one means or another that I am President of the United States.

If I cannot retain my moral influence over a man except by occasionally knocking him down, if that is the only basis upon which he will respect me, then for the sake of his soul I have got occasionally to knock him down.

I lived a dream life (almost too exclusively, perhaps) when I was a lad and even now my thought goes back for refreshment to thosedays when all the world seemed to be a place of heroic adventure in which one's heart must keep its own counsel.

Let him [the President] once win the admiration and confidence of the country, and no other single force can withstand him, no combination of forces will easily overpower him.... If he rightly interpret the national thought and boldly insist upon it, he is irresistible; and the country never feels the zest of action so much as when the President is of such insight and caliber.

We shall fight for a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free.

"Genius is divine perseverance." Divine patience I believe he originally used, perseverance is better in my opinion. Genius I cannot claim nor even extra brightness but perseverance all can have.

I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country.