“Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose, and you allow him to make war at pleasure.”
“It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.”
‘When I hear a man preach, I like to see him act as if he were fighting bees.”
“If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?”
“Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”
“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.”
“Whatever you are, be a good one.”
“He can compress the most words into the smallest ideas better than any man I ever met.”
“When you have got an elephant by the hind leg, and he is trying to run away, it’s best to let him run.”
“You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.”
“Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.”
“If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; if this is tea, please bring me some coffee.”
“Labour is prior to, and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labour, and could never have existed if labour had not first existed. Labour is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.”
“No matter how much cats fight, there always seem to be plenty of kittens.”
“The man who murdered his parents, then pleaded for mercy on the grounds that he was an orphan.”
“Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.”
“When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That’s my religion.”
“I’m a success today because I had a friend who believed in me and I didn’t have the heart to let him down.”
“After 40 every man gets the face he deserves.”
“I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts, and beer.”
“Tact: the ability to describe others as they see themselves.”
“It is not best to swap horses while crossing the river.”
“Well, I wish some of you would tell me the brand of whiskey that Grant drinks. I would like to send a barrel of it to my other generals.”
“Common looking people are the best in the world: that is the reason the Lord makes so many of them.”
“How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it a leg.”
“The best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time.”
“Force is all-conquering, but its victories are short-lived.”
“My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.”
“You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was.”
“Give me six hours to chop down a tree, and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”
“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”
“I don’t think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.”
“Avoid popularity if you would have peace.”
“People are just about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”
“Knavery and flattery are blood relations.”
“Those who write clearly have readers, those who write obscurely have commentators.”
“If you look for the bad in people expecting to find it, you surely will.”
“As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.”
“Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?”
“Nearly all men stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”
“I walk slow but I never walk back.”
“And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.”
“I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I can not remember when I did not so think, and feel . . . . I could not take the office without taking the oath. Nor was it my view that I might take an oath to get power, and break the oath in using the power . . . I did understand, however, that my oath to preserve the constitution to the best of my ability, imposed upon me the duty of preserving, by every indispensable means, that government—that nation—of which that constitution was the organic law.”
