Humankind above all is lazy. - Harriet Beecher Stowe

Mary! Mary! My dear, let me reason with you.
I hate reasoning, John, — especially reasoning on such subjects. There's a way you political folks have of coming round and round a plain right thing; and you don't believe in it yourselves, when it comes to practice. I know you well enough, John. You don't believe it's right any more than I do; and you wouldn't do it any sooner than I.

It's a matter of taking the side of the weak against the strong, something the best people have always done.

He had been able to repress every disrespectful word; but the flashing eye, the gloomy and troubled brow, were part of a natural language that could not be repressed, — indubitable signs, which showed too plainly that the man could not become a thing.