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Now military governments, established for an indefinite period, would have offered no security for the early suppression of discontent, would have divided the people into the vanquishers and the vanquished, and would have envenomed hatred rather than have restored affection.

The supply of time, though gloriously regular, is cruelly restricted.

The present alone is true and actual; it is the only time which possesses full reality, and our existence lies in it exclusively.

Besides my daylight servitude, I served over again all night in my sleep, and would awake with terrors of imaginary false entries, errors in my accounts, and the like.

The robbers of time are the past and the future.

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

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

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

This has become more difficult in a world where change and growth seem to tower beyond the control and even the judgment of men.

the foolish overlook and neglect present blessings, through their thoughts being ever intent on the future; but the wise make the past clearly present to them through memory

Fear is an instructor of great sagacity and the herald of all revolutions.

Futurity is the proper abode of hope and fear, with all their train and progeny of subordinate apprehensions and desires.

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

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.

The pure men of old slept without dreams, and waked without anxiety.

In proportion as the years both lessen and shorten, I set more count upon their periods, and would fain lay my ineffectual finger upon the spoke of the great wheel.

The movement of the floes was beyond all human control, and there was nothing to be gained by allowing one's mind to struggle with the problems of the future, though it was hard to avoid anxiety at times.

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