Political Quotes

“I have two words for Bill Dauster: Thank you. Thank you, Bill Dauster, for your brilliant mind and unwearying service to the U.S. Senate, to the American people, and to America's most noble ideals. Thank you for your good humor, and thank you for your endless supply of good ideas. The Senate is going to miss you. In Steven Spielberg's Movie ``Lincoln,'' with Daniel Day-Lewis, there is a scene in which President Lincoln is talking with Congressman Thaddeus Stephens of Pennsylvania, played by Tommy Lee Jones. Thaddeus Stephens was one of the most righteous, uncompromising abolitionists in all of American history--and thank goodness for him. In the movie, he tells President Lincoln that there is no use in appealing to the moral decency of slaveholders and their allies to end slavery and racial discrimination. The reason, he says, is that ``the inner compass that should direct the soul toward justice has ossified''--become utterly useless-- ``through tolerating the evil of slavery.'' President Lincoln's reply was so wise. He said, ``A compass, I learnt when I was surveying, . . . it'll point you True North from where you'e standing, but it's got no advice about the swamps and desert and chasm that you'll encounter along the way.'' He went on to say,``If in pursuit of your destination, you plunge ahead, heedless of obstacles, and achieve nothing more than to sink in a swamp, what's the use of knowing True North?'' There is a lesson in that story for all of us.…”