"Incidents should not govern policy; but, policy..." - Quote by Napoleon Bonaparte

“Whatever misanthropists may say, ingrates and the perverse are exceptions in the human species.”

“In the last analysis, one must be a military man in order to govern. It is only with boot and spurs that one can govern a horse.”

“In war, three-quarters turns on personal character and relations; the balance of manpower and materials counts only for the remaining quarter.”

“No individual and no generation has had enough personal experience to ignore the vast experience of the human race that is called history. Yet most of our schools and colleges today pay little attention to history. And many of our current policies repeat mistakes that were made, time and again, in the past with disastrous results.”

“I get letters from [people getting insurance] right now. "You saved my child's life." "I did not have to sell my home when my wife got sick." And that is what, as a policy maker, I'm trying to achieve during the short period of time that I'm here.”

“Are we going to take the hands of the federal government completely off any effort to adjust the growing of national crops, and go right straight back to the old principle that every farmer is a lord of his own farm and can do anything he wants, raise anything, any old time, in any quantity, and sell any time he wants?”

“I think the presidency is an institution over which you have temporary custody.”

“I think our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries; as long as they are chiefly agricultural.”

“I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the state, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party, generally.”