The quote database

Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place.

If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.

National honor is national property of the highest value.

If errors have been committed they ought to be corrected; if the policy is sound it ought to be supported.

A President may sense and proclaim that new spirit, but only a people can provide it.

I will give my all in your service thinking not of power, but of possibilities.

We will lead not merely by the example of our power but by the power of our example.

Can authority be more amiable and respectable when it descends from accidents or institutions established in remote antiquity than when it springs fresh from the hearts and judgments of an honest and enlightened people?

ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country

The most respectful deference is due to doubts originating in pure patriotism and sustained by venerated authority.

There is no act which more imperatively requires to be performed under a strong sense of individual responsibility than the nomination to employments.

Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.

In all public expenditures the most rigid economy should be resorted to, and, as one of its results, a public debt in time of peace be sedulously avoided.

In regard to foreign nations, the groundwork of my policy will be justice on our part to all, submitting to injustice from none.

In this the Endowments of Men are so employed, that the Friend and the Governor are united in one, and oppressive Customs come to an End.

The observed worker should be made to realize the purpose and importance of the measurement. The observing should always be done with his full knowledge and hearty coöperation.

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority, still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority.

As members of the minority party, we do not have the primary authority to formulate the policy of our government. But we do have the responsibility of rendering constructive criticism, of clarifying issues, of allaying fears by acting as responsible citizens.

Shirking responsibility has never been a fault with which colored women might be truthfully charged.

With courage, born of success achieved in the past, with a keen sense of the responsibility which we shall continue to assume, we look forward to a future large with promise and hope.

The beauty of our system of government consists, and its safety and durability must consist, in avoiding mutual collisions and encroachments and in the regular separate action of all, while each is revolving in its own distinct orbit.

there is no surer or more necessary restraint on the violence of an unruly multitude, than the presence of some one whose character and bearing command respect

it must be from one man that it receives its institutions at first, and upon one man that all similar reconstruction must depend

It may be answered that one should wish to be both, but, because it is difficult to unite them in one person, it is much safer to be feared than loved, when, of the two, either must be dispensed with.

injuries ought to be done all at one time, so that, being tasted less, they offend less; benefits ought to be given little by little, so that the flavour of them may last longer