CHAUNCEY DEPEW

It is a pity that instead of the Pilgrim Fathers landing on Plymouth Rock, Plymouth Rock had not landed on the Pilgrim Fathers.

Follow the path of the unsafe, independent thinker. Expose your ideas to the dangers of controversy. Speak your mind and fear less the label of 'crackpot' than the stigma of conformity. And on issues that seem important to you, stand up and be counted at any cost.

The enjoyment of life would be instantly gone if you removed the possibility of doing something.

I get my exercise acting as a pallbearer to my friends who exercise.

A pessimist is a man who thinks all women are bad. An optimist is one who hopes they are.

The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide that you are not going to stay where you are.

The government of the United States is, and always has been, a lawyer's government.

There are at least eighty liars in the convention.

There is not a man here [in Congress] who does not feel four hundred percent bigger in 1900—bigger intellectually, bigger, hopefully, bigger patriotically that he as a citizen of a country that has become a world power.

The only question now is which corpse gets the most flowers?

If you will refrain from telling any lies about the Republican Party, I'll promise not to tell the truth about the Democrats.

I saw Mr. Lincoln a number of times during the canvass for his second election. The characteristic which struck me most was his superabundance of common sense. His power of managing men, of deciding and avoiding difficult questions, surpassed that of any man I ever met.

Neither realism nor romance furnishes a more striking and picturesque figure than that of Christopher Columbus. The mystery about his origin heightens the charm of his story.

It's pleasant to hear these nice words while I'm still alive. I'd rather have the taffy than the epitaphy.

But the closer we study their lives, and the better we know their deeds, the more profound is our admiration and the greater our reverence for the Pilgrim fathers. Between the drafting of their immortal charter of liberty in the cabin of the Mayflower and the fruition of their principles in the power and majesty of the republic of the United States of to-day is but a span in the records of the word, and yet it is the most important and beneficent chapter in history. To be able to claim descent from them, either by birth or adoption, is to glory in kinship with God's nobility.

The tomb of the Saviour was a narrow and empty vault, precious only for its memories of the supreme tragedy of the centuries, but the new continent was to be the home and temple of the living God.

When Franklin drew the lightning from the clouds, he little dreamed that in the evolution of science his discovery would illuminate the torch of Liberty for France and America. The rays from this beacon, lighting this gateway to the continent, will welcome the poor and the persecuted with the hope and promise of homes and citizenship.

There are millions of stories in the world, and several hundred of them good ones.

As for food, half of my friends have dug their graves with their teeth.

It was for Columbus, when the right hour struck, forced and propelled by this fresh life, to reveal the land where these new principles were to be brought, and where the awaited trial of the new civilization was to be made.

The spirit of Columbus hovers over us to-day.

A witty illustration or an apt story will accomplish more than columns of argument.

There have been many Presidents of the United States and the roll will be indefinitely extended. We have had a number of brilliant soldiers, but only one great general.

Force was the factor in the government of the world when Christ was born, and force was the source and exercise of authority both by Church and State when Columbus sailed from Palos. The Wise Men traveled from the East toward the West under the guidance of the Star of Bethlehem. The spirit of the equality of all men before God and the law moved westward from Calvary with its revolutionary influence upon old institutions, to the Atlantic Ocean. Columbus carried it westward across the seas.

The walk downstairs to the breakfast table is excercise enough for any gentleman.