“The "Ways & Means Committee" is a committee that's supposed to find the Ways to divide up the Means.”

“If you want to be successful, love what you are doing.”

“If you want to know when a war might be coming, you just watch the U.S. and see when it starts cutting down on its defenses. It's the surest barometer in the world.”

“We will never have true civilization until we have learned to recognize the rights of others.”

“The budget is like a mythical bean bag. Congress votes mythical beans into it, then reaches in and tries to pull real ones out.”

“Don't make a novel to establish a principle of political economy. You will spoil both.”

“It is said that the world is in a state of bankruptcy, that the world owes the world more than the world can pay.”

“The greatest meliorator of the world is selfish, huckstering Trade.”

“Lend less than you owe.”

“Neither a borrower nor a lender be.”

“Neither a borrower nor a lender be, for loan oft loses both itself and friend, and borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.”

“Is this government of Britain's Isle, and this the royalty of Albion's King?”

“What a benefit would the American government, not yet relieved of its extreme need, render to itself, and to every city, village and hamlet in the States, if it would tax whiskey and rum almost to the point of prohibition! Was it Bonaparte who said that he found vices very good patriots? "He got five millions from the love of brandy, and he should be glad to know which of the virtues would pay him as much." Tobacco and opium have broad backs, and will cheerfully carry the load of armies, if you choose to make them pay high for such joy as they give and such harm as they do.”

“The State is a poor, good beast who means the best: it means friendly.”

“And makes me poor indeed.”

“Evermore thanks, the exchequer of the poor”

“Well, whiles I am a beggar, I will rail, And say there is no sin but to be rich; And being rich, my virtue then shall be To say there is no vice but beggary”

“Discuss unto me: art thou officer, Or art thou base, common, and popular?”

“Speak, what trade art thou?Why, sir, a carpenter.Where is thy leather apron and thy rule?What does thou with thy best apparel on?”

“I came from the South and I know what war is, for I have seen its wreckage and terrible ruin. It is easy for me as President to declare war. I do not have to fight, and neither do the gentlemen on the Hill who now clamour for it. It is some poor farmer's boy, or son of some poor widow away off in some modest community, or perhaps the scion of a great family, who will have to do the fighting.”

“If your Income Taxes go to help out the less fortunate, there could be no legitimate kick against it in the world. This is becoming the richest, and the poorest Country in the world. Why? Why, on account of an unequal distribution of the money.”

“We have learned to turn out lots of goods and services, but we haven't learned as well how to have everybody share in the bounty. The obligation of a society as prosperous as ours is to figure out how nobody gets left too far behind.”

“This is not to say that the government should confiscate from the "haves" and bestow upon the "have-nots", beyond the requirements of a compassionate welfare program to provide for those who cannot provide for themselves. Far from it. But it is to say that our duty is to foster a strong, vibrant wealth-producing economy which operates in such a way that new additions to wealth accrue to those who presently have little or no ownership stake in their country.”