There is no good in arguing with the inevitable. The only argument available with an east wind is to put on your overcoat. - James Russell Lowell

Endurance is the crowning quality,
And patience all the passion of great hearts.

Few people take the trouble of trying to find out what democracy really is. Yet this would be a great help, for it is our lawless and uncertain thoughts, it is the indefiniteness of our impressions, that fill darkness, whether mental or physical, with spectres and hobgoblins. Democracy is nothing more than an experiment in government, more likely to succeed in a new soil, but likely to be tried in all soils, which must stand or fall on its own merits as others have done before it. For there is no trick of perpetual motion in politics any more than in mechanics.

"On Lincoln: "A profound common sense is the best genius for statesmanship.