The quote database

His duty is to administer the present Government as it came to his hands and to transmit it unimpaired by him to his successor.

Energy in the Executive is a leading character in the definition of good government.

In administering the laws of Congress I shall keep steadily in view the limitations as well as the extent of the Executive power trusting thereby to discharge the functions of my office without transcending its authority.

The laws of the United States must be executed.

Nay, ’tis woman’s strongest vindication for speaking that the world needs to hear her voice.

Industry, thrift, character, are not conferred by act or resolve. Government cannot relieve from toil.

There is no female mind. The brain is not an organ of sex. As well speak of a female liver.

The Constitution defines the functions and powers of the executive as clearly as those of either of the other two departments of the Government, and he must answer for the just exercise of the discretion it permits and the performance of the duties it imposes.

This American carnage stops right here and stops right now.

What truly matters is not which party controls our government, but whether our government is controlled by the people.

At the center of this movement is a crucial conviction: that a nation exists to serve its citizens.

It decrees that we, the people, elect leaders not to rule but to serve.

When the Government acts to take away the fundamental right of citizenship, the safeguards of the Constitution should be examined with special diligence.

Our constitutional system amply provides for the protection of minorities by means other than giving them majority control of state legislatures.

The economy of injustice is to furnish resources for the fund of corruption.

An armed disciplined body is, in its essence, dangerous to liberty; undisciplined, it is ruinous to society.

The average mind is slow in grasping a truth, but when the most thoroughly organized, centralized institution, maintained at an excessive national expense, has proven a complete social failure, the dullest must begin to question its right to exist.

The most unpardonable sin in society is independence of thought.

Those that have joined with their honor great travels, cares, or perils, are less subject to envy.

Nearly all of us recognize that as intricacies of human relationships increase, so power to govern them also must increase--power to stop evil; power to do good.

The democratic aspiration is no mere recent phase in human history.

To make a contented slave, it is necessary to make a thoughtless one

The moral which I gained from the dialogue was the power of truth over the conscience of even a slaveholder.

The plea for this outrage was then, as it is always, the tyrant's plea of necessity.

There is but one just use of power, and it is to serve people.