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Do not then vainly imagine that you can obtain the heavenly possessions without making an effort.

Idleness and a strong will cannot go together, and procrastination is a total barrier to the acquisition of purposeful action.

Concentration is an aid to the doing of something; it is not the doing of something in itself.

Give scrupulous attention to the duty of the present moment.

To be able to do a thing, you must begin to do it, and keep on doing it until the thing is mastered.

If he is perplexed, unhappy, restless, or wretched, let him look to himself, for there and nowhere else is the source of all his trouble.

Man is a thought-being, and his life and character are determined by the thoughts in which he habitually dwells.

Reverie is a loose dreaming into which a man falls; meditation is a strong, purposeful thinking into which a man rises.

Nothing comes unbidden; where the shadow is, there also is the substance.

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

In short, we ought to do justice in a kindly spirit to all nations and require justice from them in return.

After becoming citizens they are entitled, under the Constitution and laws, to be placed on a perfect equality with native-born citizens, and in this character they should ever be kindly recognized.

Our diplomacy should be direct and frank, neither seeking to obtain more nor accepting less than is our due.

Next in importance to the maintenance of the Constitution and the Union is the duty of preserving the Government free from the taint or even the suspicion of corruption.

Under our system there is a remedy for all mere political evils in the sound sense and sober judgment of the people.

Well may the boldest fear and the wisest tremble when incurring responsibilities on which may depend our country's peace and prosperity, and in some degree the hopes and happiness of the whole human family.

By the theory of our Government majorities rule, but this right is not an arbitrary or unlimited one.

The burdens of government should as far as practicable be distributed justly and equally among all classes of our population.

Melancholy is the condition of that people whose government can be sustained only by a system which periodically transfers large amounts from the labor of the many to the coffers of the few.

Genius is free to announce its inventions and discoveries, and the hand is free to accomplish whatever the head conceives not incompatible with the rights of a fellow-being.

One great object of the Constitution was to restrain majorities from oppressing minorities or encroaching upon their just rights.

As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed.

Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires.

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.