Persuasion is achieved by the speaker's personal character when the speech is so spoken as to make us think him credible.

Understanding a question is half an answer.

As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.

With reasonable men, I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarters, nor waste arguments where they will certainly be lost.

The world would be happier if men had the same capacity to be silent that they have to speak.

Every word has consequences. Every silence, too.

Silence at the proper season is wisdom, and better than any speech.

People who know what they’re talking about don’t need PowerPoint.

When angry, count to ten before you speak; if very angry, one hundred.

My experience has shown me that we win justice quickest by rendering justice to the other party.

Tact is the knack of making a point without making an enemy.

In all negotiations of difficulty, a man may not look to sow and reap at once; but must prepare business, and so ripen it by degrees.

The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people.

Wherever there is injustice, war, discrimination against women, gays and the disadvantaged, I did my best to show up and exert moral persuasion.

We know how to speak many falsehoods which resemble real things, but we know, when we will, how to speak true things.

The truth is always exciting. Speak it, then. Life is dull without it.

It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably gracious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them.

Man's tongue is soft, and bone doth lack; yet a stroke therewith may break a man's back.