Friends, I agree with you in Providence; but I believe in the Providence of the most men, the largest purse, and the longest cannon.
He will have to learn, I know, that all people are not just- that all men and women are not true. Teach him that for every scoundrel there is a hero that for every enemy there is a friend. Let him learn early that the bullies are the easiest people to lick.
Don’t swap horses in the middle of the stream.
I have never united myself to any church because I found difficulty in giving my assent without mental reservation to the long, complicated statements of Christian doctrine which characterize the articles of belief and the usual confession of faith.
I must keep some standard of principle fixed within myself.
I hold that while a man exists, it is his duty to improve not only his own condition, but to assist in ameliorating mankind.
A man’s legs must be long enough to reach the ground.
If 600,000 people have to die in order for the nation to live, then 600,000 people will die.
There is no greater injustice than to wring your profits from the sweat of another man’s brow.
We will make converts day by day; we will grow strong by the violence and injustice of our adversaries. And, unless truth be a mockery and justice a hollow lie, we will be in the majority after a while.
All the armies of Europe combined could not by force make a track upon the Blue Ridge, or take a drink from the Ohio. If we are to be destroyed, we must do it ourselves.
I cannot think that we are useless or God would not have created us.
Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can.
You have more of a feeling of personal resentment than I have. Perhaps, I have too little of it, but I never thought it paid.
The Constitution is not a suicide pact.
We all declare for liberty, but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing.
Cortissoz was art critic of the New York Herald Tribune.
It has been said that one bad general is better than two good ones, and the saying is true if taken to mean no more than that an army is better directed by a single mind, though inferior, than by two superior ones at variance and cross-purposes with each other.
Never let your correspondence fall behind.
Our popular government has often been called an experiment. Two points in it our people have already settled, the successful establishing and the successful administering of it. One still remains, its successful maintenance against a formidable internal attempt to overthrow it.