John Adams, Founding Father and 2nd President of the United States:
[A legislature]…should be an exact portrait, in miniature, of the people at large, as it should feel, reason and act like them.
Posterity! You will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom! I hope you will make a good use of it.
To maintain a republic requires virtue and simplicity among all orders and degrees of men. Virtue must underlie all institutional arrangements if they are to be healthy and strong. The principles of democracy are as easily destroyed as human nature is corrupted.
John Quincy Adams, 6th President of the United States:
Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish into air.
If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.
Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States:
I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for that day.
If ever American society and the U.S. government are demoralized, it will come from the struggle to live without toil.
I am a slow walker, but I never walk backwards.
The best way to destroy your enemy is to make him your friend.
Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing.
The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, we must think anew and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.
How many legs does a dog have if you call his tail a leg? Four. Saying that a tail is a leg doesn't make it a leg.
You can’t make a weak man strong by making a strong man weak.
Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves.
The legitimate object of government is to do for the people what needs to be done, but which they cannot, by individual effort, or at all, or do so well, for themselves.
My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.
I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts.
Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.
The best thing about the future is, it comes one day at a time.
[The leading object of government]…to elevate the condition of men--to lift artificial weights from all shoulders, to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all, to afford all an unfettered start and a fair chance in the race of life.
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; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan. (2nd Inaugural Address)
