Power is poison. Its effect on Presidents had always been tragic.
The effect of power and publicity on all men is the aggravation of self, a sort of tumor that ends by killing the victim's sympathies.
The Declaration of Independence I always considered as a theatrical show. Jefferson ran away with all the stage effect of that... and all the glory of it.
According to the Stoics, all vice was resolvable into folly: according to the Christian principle, it is all the effect of weakness.
Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish.