It is a law woven into the nature of man, attested by history, by science, by literature and art, and by dally experience, that strength of mind and force of character are the supreme rulers of human affairs.
— Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar II
I cannot write a speech. The pen is an extinguisher upon my mind and a torture to my nerves. I am the most habitual extemporaneous speaker that I have ever known.
The nations of Europe constitute a federative league, a commonwealth of nations which, though it has no central head, is so intimate and elaborate as to subject the action, and sometimes even the internal affairs, of each to surveillance and intervention on the part of all the others.
I think it eminently proper that a president should retire from active politics, and equally proper that he should be able to live in quiet independence.
I formed, in early life, two purposes to which I have inflexibly adhered, under some very strong pressure from warm personal friends. They were, first, never to be a second in a duel; and, second, never to go security for another man's debts.
The very first act of the Confederate Government was to send commissioners to Washington to make terms of peace, and to establish relations of amity between the two sections.
Liberty does not exist where rights are on one side and power on the other. To be liberty, rights must be armed with vital powers. A people cannot be free who do not participate in the control of the government which operates upon them.
When a nation has just emerged from the throes of a great civil warfare, where section was arrayed against section, class against class, two things are to be done: First, the work of reconstruction is to be effected; Secondly, a willingness for the proper acceptance of the issue's decision is to be created.
The center of all my enjoyments is the home wherein are my wife and children, and I have no wish to wander out from that home in pursuit of any pleasures that the world presents.
