“Democracy means despair of finding any heroes to govern you, and contented putting up with the want of them.”

Our grand business undoubtedly is, not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.

Experience is the best of school masters, only the school fees are heavy.

A great man shows his greatness by the way he treats little men.

You can make even a parrot into a learned political economist – all he must learn are the two words “supply” and “demand.”

Foolish men imagine that because judgment for an evil thing is delayed, there is no justice; but only accident here below. Judgment for an evil thing is many times delayed some day or two, some century or two, but it is sure as life, it is sure as death.

Of all God’s creatures, Man alone is poor.

Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do that with all thy might and leave the issues calmly to God.

No iron chain, or outward force of any kind, could ever compel the soul of man to believe or to disbelieve: it is his own indefeasible light, that judgment of his; he will reign and believe there by the grace of God alone!

Every noble work is at first impossible.

No man lives without jostling and being jostled; in all ways he has to elbow himself through the world, giving and receiving offence.

A loving heart is the beginning of all knowledge.

No man sees far, most see no farther than their noses.

Nothing stops the man who desires to achieve. Every obstacle is simply a course to develop his achievement muscle. It’s a strengthening of his powers of accomplishment.

In every phenomenon the beginning remains always the most notable moment.

To say that we have a clear conscience is to utter a solecism; had we never sinned we should have had no conscience. Were defeat unknown, neither would victory be celebrated by songs of triumph.

The eternal stars shine out again, so soon as it is dark enough.

The greatest purveyor of violence in the world : My own Government, I can not be Silent.

The ballot is stronger than the bullet.

As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.

Voting is an integral part of our democracy.

All people are born alike except Republicans and Democrats.

Pure logic is the ruin of the spirit.

Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past. Let us accept our own responsibility for the future.