Most Americans aren't the sort of citizens the Founding Fathers expected they are contented serfs. Far from being active critics of government they assume that its might makes it right.

I hope all of you are going to fill out your census form when it comes in the mail next month. If you don't return the form the area you live in might get less government money and you wouldn't want that to happen would you.

To establish any mode to abolish war however advantageous it might be to Nations would be to take from such Government the most lucrative of its branches.

I am glad that I paid so little attention to good advice had I abided by it I might have been saved from some of my most valuable mistakes.

If I'd had good discipline I might have gone into music.

I would go to the deeps a hundred times to cheer a downcast spirit. It is good for me to have been afflicted that I might know how to speak a word in season to one that is weary.

To prefer evil to good is not in human nature and when a man is compelled to choose one of two evils no one will choose the greater when he might have the less.

I only wish that ordinary people had an unlimited capacity for doing harm then they might have an unlimited power for doing good.

Each year one vicious habit discarded in time might make the worst of us good.

Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt.