President Quotes

Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in.

Money is power, and in that government which pays all the public officers of the states will all political power be substantially concentrated.

I have always been afraid of banks.

Heaven will be no heaven to me if I do not meet my wife there.

The people are the government, administering it by their agents; they are the government, the sovereign power.

All the rights secured to the citizens under the Constitution are worth nothing, and a mere bubble, except guaranteed to them by an independent and virtuous Judiciary.

Any man worth his salt will stick up for what he believes right, but it takes a slightly better man to acknowledge instantly and without reservation that he is in error.

Every good citizen makes his country's honor his own, and cherishes it not only as precious but as sacred. He is willing to risk his life in its defense and its conscious that he gains protection while he gives it.

It is a damn poor mind indeed which can't think of at least two ways to spell any word.

One man with courage makes a majority.

As long as our government is administered for the good of the people, and is regulated by their will; as long as it secures to us the rights of persons and of property, liberty of conscience and of the press, it will be worth defending.

The great constitutional corrective in the hands of the people against usurpation of power, or corruption by their agents is the right of suffrage; and this when used with calmness and deliberation will prove strong enough.

Unless you become more watchful in your states and check the spirit of monopoly and thirst for exclusive privileges you will in the end find that... the control over your dearest interests has passed into the hands of these corporations.

The planter, the farmer, the mechanic, and the laborer... form the great body of the people of the United States, they are the bone and sinew of the country men who love liberty and desire nothing but equal rights and equal laws.

If the Union is once severed, the line of separation will grow wider and wider, and the controversies which are now debated and settled in the halls of legislation will then be tried in fields of battle and determined by the sword.

There is no pleasure in having nothing to do; the fun is having lots to do and not doing it.

We are beginning a new era in our government. I cannot too strongly urge the necessity of a rigid economy and an inflexible determination not to enlarge the income beyond the real necessities of the government.

The Bible is the rock on which this Republic rests.

Mischief springs from the power which the moneyed interest derives from a paper currency which they are able to control, from the multitude of corporations with exclusive privileges... which are employed altogether for their benefit.

The wisdom of man never yet contrived a system of taxation that would operate with perfect equality.

The duty of government is to leave commerce to its own capital and credit as well as all other branches of business, protecting all in their legal pursuits, granting exclusive privileges to none.

You must pay the price if you wish to secure the blessing.

It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their own selfish purposes.

I weep for the liberty of my country when I see at this early day of its successful experiment that corruption has been imputed to many members of the House of Representatives, and the rights of the people have been bartered for promises of office.

To Englishmen, life is a topic, not an activity.

The only legitimate right to govern is an express grant of power from the governed.

The chains of military despotism, once fastened upon a nation, ages might pass away before they could be shaken off.

Sir, I wish to understand the true principles of the Government. I wish them carried out. I ask nothing more.

I contend that the strongest of all governments is that which is most free.

I believe that all the measures of the Government are directed to the purpose of making the rich richer and the poor poorer.