You cannot tear up ancient rootages and safely plant the tree of liberty in soil that is not native to it.

Responsibility is proportionate to opportunity.

I must beg you to indulge me in the matter of hyphens.... You will find that I have marked out a great many in the proofs. We arein danger of Germanizing our printing by using them so much, and I have a very decided preference in the matter.

It is not men that interest or disturb me primarily; it is ideas. Ideas live; men die.

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.

Living political constitutions must be Darwinian in structure and in practice. Society is a living organism and must obey the laws of life, not of mechanics; it must develop. All that progressives ask or desire is permission-in an era when 'development,' 'evolution,' is the scientific word-to interpret the Constitution according to the Darwinian principle; all they ask is recognition of the fact that a nation is a living thing and not a machine.

Life does not consist in thinking, it consists in acting.