Henry Clay (1777 – 1852)
Leading American statesman and orator who served in both the House of Representatives and Senate.
The arts of power and its minions are the same in all countries and in all ages. It marks its victim; denounces it; and excites the public odium and the public hatred, to conceal its own abuses and encroachments.
If you wish to avoid foreign collision, you had better abandon the ocean.
We have had good and bad Presidents, and it is a consoling reflection that the American Nation possesses such elements of prosperity that the bad Presidents cannot destroy it, and have been able to do no more than slightly to retard the public's advancement.
How often are we forced to charge fortune with partiality towards the unjust!
Political parties serve to keep each other in check, one keenly watching the other.
The great advantage of our system of government over all others, is, that we have a written constitution, defining its limits, and prescribing its authorities; and that, however, for a time, faction may convulse the nation, and passion and party prejudice sway its functionaries, the season of reflection will recur, when calmly retracing their deeds, all aberrations from fundamental principle will be corrected.
In a scheme of policy which is devised for a nation, we should not limit our views to its operation during a single year, or even for a short term of years. We should look at its operation for a considerable time, and in war as well as in peace.
Statistics are no substitute for judgment.
I would rather be right than be President.
Government is a trust, and the officers of the government are trustees; and both the trust and the trustees are created for the benefit of the people.