C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Henry Clay
A nation’s character is the sum of its splendid deeds; they constitute one common patrimony, the nation’s inheritance. They awe foreign powers; they arouse and animate our own people.
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.
I always have had, and always shall have, a profound regard for Christianity, the religion of my fathers, and for its rights, its usages and observances.
I have heard something said about allegience to the south: I know no south, no north, no east, no west, to which I owe any allegiance.
In all the affairs of human life, social as well as political, I have remarked that courtesies of a small and trivial character are the ones which strike deepest to the grateful and appreciating heart.
Political parties serve to keep each other in check, one keenly watching the other.
Sir, I would rather be right than be president.
There is no power like that of oratory. Cæsar controlled men by exciting their fears; Cicero, by captivating their affections and swaying their passions. The influence of the one perished with its author; that of the other continues to this day.