The trouble with the theory [of limited and divided government] is that government is not a machine, but a living thing. This is where the living and breathing constitution comes from. It is modified by its environment, necessitated by its tasks, shaped to its functions by the sheer pressure of life.

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.

There is no more subtle dissolvent of morals than sentimentality.

Great statesmen seem to direct and rule by a sort of power to put themselves in the place of the nation over which they are set, and may thus be said to possess the souls of poets at the same time they display the coarser sense and the more vulgar sagacity of practical men of business.

Settlements may be temporary, but the action of the nations in the interest of peace and justice must be permanent. We can set up permanent processes. We may not be able to set up permanent decisions.

Some of us let these great dreams die, but others nourish and protect them; nurse them through bad days till they bring them to the sunshine and light...

Your enlightenment depends on the company you keep. You do not know the world until you know the men who have possessed it and tried its wares before you were ever given your brief run upon it.