We didn't have another choice but to do what we did, if we wanted to be accepted, because we weren't counted as human beings.

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

I have always been among those who believed that the greatest freedom of speech was the greatest safety, because if a man is a fool, the best thing to do is to encourage him to advertise the fact by speaking.

Only free peoples can hold their purpose and their honor steady to a common end, and prefer the interests of mankind to any narrow interest of their own.

Not all change is progress.

If the colored people made a mistake in voting for me, they ought to correct it.

One cool judgment is worth a thousand hasty counsels. The thing to do is to supply light and not heat.