After eight years as President I have only two regrets: that I have not shot Henry Clay or hanged John C. Calhoun.
Were all the worshippers of the gold calf to memorialize me and request a restoration of the deposits I would cut my right hand from my body before I would do such an act. The gold calf may be worshipped by others but as for myself I serve the Lord.
We must regain Texas, peaceably if we can, forcibly if we must.
In England the judges should have independence to protect the people against the crown. Here the judges should not be independent of the people, but be appointed for not more than seven years. The people would always re-elect the good judges.
We are beginning a new era in our government. I cannot too strongly urge the necessity of a rigid economy and an inflexible determination not to enlarge the income beyond the real necessities of the government.
Disunion by force is treason.
If a warden sees cigarette litter being thrown from a car, they will take the number and trace the owner to send them a fine.
The safety of the republic being the supreme law, and Texas having offered us the key to the safety of our country from all foreign intrigues and diplomacy, I say accept the key and bolt the door at once.
You are uneasy; you never sailed with me before, I see.
Too much praise cannot be bestowed on those who managed my artillery.
It was settled by the Constitution, the laws, and the whole practice of the government that the entire executive power is vested in the President of the United States.
I do not promise to believe tomorrow exactly what I believe today, and I do not believe today exactly what I believed yesterday. I expect to make, as I have made, some honest progress within every succeeding twenty-four hours.
Plant spacious parks in your cities, and loose their gates as wide as the morning, to the whole people.
Fine fruit is the flower of commodities. It is the most perfect union of the useful and the beautiful that the earth knows. Trees full of soft foliage; blossoms fresh with spring bounty; and, finally, fruit, rich, bloom-dusted, melting, and luscious.
Fear not, too much, an open enemy; He is consistent – always at his post; But watchful be of him who holds the key Of your own heart, and flatters you the most.
Man toils, and strives, and wastes his little life to claim – At last the transient glory of a splendid name, And have, perchance, in marble mockery a bust, Poised on a pedestal, above his sleeping dust.
He who owns a wood of proper land in this country, and, in the face of all the personal riches of the day, only raises crabs and choke pears, deserves to lose the respect of all sensible men.
Any theory, hypothesis, philosophy, sect, creed or institution that fears investigation, openly manifests its own error.
Do you wish to make of your enemy a friend? Then become a friend to your enemy.
In an era when gay men like Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein paid a fortune in blackmail to hustlers to keep their secrets safe, Andy Warhol took everything he was told to keep hidden and threw it right back in society’s face.
Any man worth his salt will stick up for what he believes right, but it takes a slightly better man to acknowledge instantly and without reservation that he is in error.