A vote is like a rifle: its usefulness depends upon the character of the user. - Theodore Roosevelt

I put myself in the way of things happening, and they happened.

"The very pathetic myth of "beneficent nature" could not deceive even the least wise being if he once saw for himself the iron cruelty of life in the tropics. Of course "nature" — in common parlance a wholly inaccurate term, by the way, especially when used as if to express a single entity — is entirely ruthless, no less so as regards types than as regards individuals, and entirely indifferent to good or evil, and works out her ends or no ends with utter disregard of pain and woe."

Gradually, however, I was forced to abandon the effort to persuade them to come my way, and then I achieved results only by appealing over the heads of the Senate and House leaders to the people, who were the masters of both of us.