«The best time to listen to a politician is when he's on a stump on a street corner in the rain late at night when he's exhausted. Then he doesn't lie.»

«Rid me, and deliver me from the hand of strange children, whose mouth speaketh vanity, and their right hand is a right hand of falsehood: / That our sons may be as plants grown up in their youth; that our daughters may be as corner stones, polished after the similitude of a palace: / That our garners may be full, affording all manner of store: that our sheep may bring forth thousands and ten thousands in our streets: / That our oxen may be strong to labour; that there be no breaking in, nor going out; that there be no complaining in our streets.»

«We must annex those people. We can afflict them with our wise and beneficent government. We can introduce the novelty of thieves, all the way up from street-car pickpockets to municipal robbers and Government defaulters, and show them how amusing it is to arrest them and try them and then turn them loose -- some for cash and some for ''political influence.'' We can make them ashamed of their simple and primitive justice. We can make that little bunch of sleepy islands the hottest corner on earth, and array it in the moral splendor of our high and holy civilization. Annexation is what the poor islanders need. ''Shall we to men benighted, the lamp of life deny?''»