"Democracy becomes a government of bullies tempered..." - Quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson

“It is the quality of the moment, not the number of days, or events, or of actors, that imports.”

“The trail of the serpent reaches into all the lucrative professions and practices of man. Each has its own wrongs. Each finds a tender and very intelligent conscience a disqualification for success. Each requires of the practitioner a certain shutting of the eyes, a certain dapperness and compliance, an acceptance of customs, a sequestration from the sentiments of generosity and love, a compromise of private opinion and lofty integrity.”

“Insist on yourself. Never imitate.”

“Elections belong to the people. It's their decision.”

“Democracy appears to be safer and less liable to revolution than oligarchy. For in oligarchies there is the double danger of the oligarchs falling out among themselves and also with the people; but in democracies there is only the danger of a quarrel with the oligarchs. No dissension worth mentioning arises among the people themselves. And we may further remark that a government which is composed of the middle class more nearly approximates to democracy than to oligarchy, and is the safest of the imperfect forms of government.”

“That is the nature of democracy. It is hard. It is not always inspiring.”

“The government of the world I live in was not framed, like that of Britain, in after-dinner conversations over the wine.”

“The tumultuous populace of large cities are ever to be dreaded. Their indiscriminate violence prostrates for the time all public authority, and its consequences are sometimes extensive and terrible.”

“We will send ships and Marines as soon as possible for the protection of American life and property.”