All quotes

Uncertainty gives fear a chance to get in its deadly work on the imagination and make cowards of us.

When the need comes, there is a power deep within us that answers the call.

we ought to give our friend pain if it will benefit him, but not to the extent of breaking off our friendship; but just as we make use of some biting medicine, that will save and preserve the life of the patient

This custom of ostracism was not intended as a punishment for crime, but was called, in order to give it a plausible title, a check to excessive power.

the immoderate desire for each, implanting a most immoderate fear of losing them, makes the enjoyment of them weak and wavering, like a flame under the influence of a wind

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

God will not have his work made manifest by cowards.

With all its defects, delays and inconveniences, men have discovered no technique for long preserving free government except that the Executive be under the law, and that the law be made by parliamentary deliberations.

Again, in taking away our friends, death does not take them away utterly, but leaves behind a mocking, tragical, and soon intolerable residue, which must be hurriedly concealed.

Indeed, the ideal story is that of two people who go into love step for step, with a fluttered consciousness, like a pair of children venturing together into a dark room.

Marriage is terrifying, but so is a cold and forlorn old age.

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

A man must so train his habits as to rely upon his own powers and depend upon his own courage in moments of emergency.

Difficulties may intimidate the weak, but they act only as a wholesome stimulus to men of resolution and valour.

It is during our most challenging and uncertain moments that our Nation's commitment to due process is most severely tested; and it is in those times that we must preserve our commitment at home to the principles for which we fight abroad.

Do not, I beg you, dread those things which the immortal gods apply to our minds like spurs: misfortune is virtue's opportunity.

Misfortunes press hardest on those who are unacquainted with them: the yoke feels heavy to the tender neck.

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

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

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.

Providence treats us like a generous father, and brings us up to labors, toils, and dangers; whereas the indulgence of a fond mother makes us weak and spiritless.

Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.

It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.

By flight alone we cannot overcome, but by endurance and true humility we are made stronger than all our enemies.

I would have given anything then to have been back in Illinois, but I had not the moral courage to halt and consider what to do; I kept right on.