Henry Clay Quotes

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.

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.

The time will come when winter will ask what you were doing all summer.

Of all the properties which belong to honorable men, not one is so highly prized as that of character.

The measure of the wealth of a nation is indicated by the measure of its protection of its industry; the measure of the poverty of a nation is marked by the degree in which it neglects and abandons the care of its own industry, leaving it exposed to the action of foreign powers.

Peaceably if we can, forcibly if we must.

The Constitution of the United States was made not merely for the generation that then existed, but for posterity- unlimited, undefined, endless, perpetual posterity.

All legislation, all government, all society is founded upon the principle of mutual concession, politeness, comity, courtesy; upon these everything is based...Let him who elevates himself above humanity, above its weaknesses, its infirmities, its wants, its necessities, say, if he pleases, I will never compromise; but let no one who is not above the frailties of our common nature disdain compromises.

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.

Courtesies of a small and trivial character are the ones which strike deepest in the grateful and appreciating heart.

Let him who elevates himself above humanity . . . say, if he pleases, "I will never compromise"; but let no one who is not above the frailties of our common nature disdain compromise.

I cannot believe that the killing of 2,000 Englishmen at New Orleans qualifies a person for the various difficult and complicated duties of the Presidency.

An oppressed people are authorized whenever they can to rise and break their fetters.

Statistics are no substitute for judgment.

All legislation is founded upon the principle of mutual concession.

I had rather be right than be President.

I have heard something said about allegiance to the South. I know no South, no North, no East, no West, to which I owe any allegiance.

There is no power like oratory. Caesar controlled men by exciting their fears, Cicero by . . . swaying their passions. The influence of the one perished; that of the other continues to this day.

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.

Of all human powers operating on the affairs of mankind, none is greater than that of competition.

Political parties serve to keep each other in check, one keenly watching the other.

Honor and good faith and justice are equally due from this country toward the weak as toward the strong.

I am not, sir, in favor of cherishing the passion of conquest. I am permitted ... to indulge the hope of seeing, ere long, the new United States, (if you will allow me the expression,) embracing not only the old.

The imposition of taxes has its limits. There is a maximum which cannot be transcended. Suppose the citizen to be taxed by the general government to the utmost extent of his ability, or a thing as much as it can possibly bear, and the state imposes a tax at the same time, which authority is to take it?

By competition the total amount of supply is increased, and by increase of the supply a competition in the sale ensues, and this enables the consumer to buy at lower rates. Of all human powers operating on the affairs of mankind, none is greater than that of competition.