The man who more than any other, save Lincoln, had changed us into a nation whose citizens were all freemen, realized entirely that these freemen would remain free only while they kept mastery over their own evil passions.
Reflecting on the legacy of Grant and Lincoln, this passage asserts that true freedom requires individuals to control their own base impulses.
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The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood.
A broken promise is bad enough in private life. It is worse in the field of politics.
The man who does nothing cuts the same sordid figure in the pages of history, whether he be cynic, or fop, or voluptuary.
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