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Limited as are the powers which have been granted, still enough have been granted to constitute a despotism if concentrated in one of the departments.

When once a decision is reached and execution is the order of the day, dismiss absolutely all responsibility and care about the outcome.

Imperturbability means coolness and presence of mind under all circumstances, calmness amid storm, clearness of judgment in moments of grave peril, immobility, impassiveness, or, to use an old and expressive word, phlegm.

Let the day's work suffice; live for it, regardless of what the future has in store, believing that to-morrow should take thought for the things of itself.

Surely it is hardly fitting that the ruler should be baser than the ruled.

My life has a limit, but my knowledge is without limit.

Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the government, nor of dungeons to ourselves.

His duty is to administer the present Government as it came to his hands and to transmit it unimpaired by him to his successor.

If the minority will not acquiesce, the majority must, or the Government must cease.

This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it.

Resolve to be honest at all events; and if in your own judgment you cannot be an honest lawyer, resolve to be honest without being a lawyer.

The leading rule for a lawyer, as for the man of every other calling, is diligence.

Our cause, then, must be intrusted to, and conducted by, its own undoubted friends--those whose hands are free, whose hearts are in the work, who do care for the result.

Slavery is founded in the selfishness of man's nature,--opposition to it in his love of justice.

This declared indifference, but, as I must think, real, covert zeal, for the spread of slavery, I cannot but hate.

What I do say is that no man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent.

When the white man governs himself, that is self-government; but when he governs himself and also governs another man, that is more than self-government,--that is despotism.

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in

The engine can arrange and combine its numerical quantities exactly as if they were letters or any other general symbols; and in fact it might bring out its results in algebraical notation, were provisions made accordingly.

The Analytical Engine has no pretensions whatever to originate any thing. It can do whatever we know how to order it to perform.

The aim of moral discipline is to purify the heart from the rust of passion and resentment, till, like a clear mirror, it reflects the light of God.

The soul should take care of the body, just as a pilgrim on his way to Mecca takes care of his camel.

Energy in the Executive is a leading character in the definition of good government.

Considering standing armies as dangerous to free governments in time of peace, I shall not seek to enlarge our present establishment, nor disregard that salutary lesson of political experience which teaches that the military should be held subordinate to the civil power.

In administering the laws of Congress I shall keep steadily in view the limitations as well as the extent of the Executive power trusting thereby to discharge the functions of my office without transcending its authority.