It is to deny, what the history of the world tells us is true, to suppose that men of ambition and talents will not continue to spring up amongst us. And, when they do, they will as naturally seek the gratification of their ruling passion, as others have so done before them.
At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.
Broken by it, I, too, may be; bow to it I never will. The probability that we may fall in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just; it shall not deter me.
Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. Whether it be true or not, i can say, for one, that i have no other so great as that of being truly esteemed of my fellow-men, by rendering myself worthy of their esteem.
Our proverbs want rewriting. They were made in winter, and it is summer now.
The only way of seeing the stars is not wishing but hurting oneself.
Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow.
The trouble with being educated is that it takes a long time; it uses up the better part of your life and when you are finished what you know is that you would have benefited more by going into banking.
I was drawn to all the wrong things: I liked to drink, I was lazy, I didn't have a God, politics, ideas, ideals. I was settled into nothingness; a kind of non-being, and I accepted it. I didn't make for an interesting person. I didn't want to be interesting, it was too hard. What I really wanted was only a soft, hazy space to live in, and to be left alone. On the other hand, when I got drunk I screamed, went crazy, got all out of hand. One kind of behavior didn't fit the other. I didn't care.
For what reason do you stil want to attack? Sit like one who has won!