Cast your whole vote, not a strip of paper merely, but your whole influence. A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority;

but by the alacrity with which it got out of its way. It does not keep the country free. It does not settle the West. It does not educate. The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished; and it would have done somewhat more, if the government had not sometimes got in its way.

In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well.

The best thing a man can do for his culture when he is rich is to endeavor to carry out those schemes which he entertained when he was poor.

Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it.

The soldier is applauded who refuses to serve in an unjust war by those who do not refuse to sustain the unjust government which makes the war;

The government itself, which is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it.

Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it. It is only expressing to men feebly your desire that it should prevail.

It is not a man’s duty, as a matter of course, to devote himself to the eradication of any, even the most enormous wrong;