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Let it be impressed upon all hearts that, beautiful as our fabric is, no earthly power or wisdom could ever reunite its broken fragments.

Finally we must have courage and self-confidence to cling to our own methods and conceptions of human society. After all, the greatest danger that can befall us in coping with this problem of Soviet communism, is that we shall allow ourselves to become like those with whom we are coping.

The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism.

The strong man who in the confidence of sturdy health courts the sternest activities of life and rejoices in the hardihood of constant labor may still have lurking near his vitals the unheeded disease that dooms him to sudden collapse.

At the present moment in world history nearly every nation must choose between alternative ways of life.

Our whole system of self-government will crumble either if officials elect what laws they will enforce or citizens elect what laws they will support.

The South is brutalized to a degree not realized by its own inhabitants, and the very foundation of government, law and order, are imperilled.

Whether one be fearful or fearless, foolish or wise, troubled or serene, within that soul lies the cause of its own state or states, and never without.

It is an evil omen of the times that men have undertaken to calculate the mere material value of the Union.

Conscious of my own deficiency, I cannot enter on these duties without great anxiety for the result.

It is only when the people become ignorant and corrupt, when they degenerate into a populace, that they are incapable of exercising the sovereignty.

In nine cases out of ten, a woman had better show more affection than she feels.

In the midst of these pleasing ideas we should be unfaithful to ourselves if we should ever lose sight of the danger to our liberties if anything partial or extraneous should infect the purity of our free, fair, virtuous, and independent elections.

The collisions of party spirit which originate in speculative opinions or in different views of administrative policy are in their nature transitory.

Such increase is destined to keep pace with the growth of our population, until, without a figure of speech, an army of officeholders may be spread over the land.

Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers.

The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.

A good conscience fears no witnesses, but a guilty conscience is solicitous even of solitude.

Beside, that the ills which he fears he may suffer, he suffers in the very fear of them.

Life is a navigation; we are perpetually wallowing and dashing one against another; sometimes we suffer shipwreck, but we are always in danger and in expectation of it.

Can there be any man so fearful, that had not rather fall once than hang always in suspense?

Not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears, but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is abundantly sufficient; for he that is so, wants nothing.

How many casualties and difficulties are there that we dread as insupportable mischiefs, which, upon farther thoughts, we find to be mercies and benefits?

If we do not watch, we lose our opportunities; if we do not make haste, we are left behind; our best hours escape us, the worst are to come.

Where the mind is tinctured with philosophy, there is no place for grief, anxiety, or superfluous vexations.