Influence Mines

Famous quotes containing the words influence and/or mines:

    Constitutional statutes ... which embody the settled public opinion of the people who enacted them and whom they are to govern—can always be enforced. But if they embody only the sentiments of a bare majority, pronounced under the influence of a temporary excitement, they will, if strenuously opposed, always fail of their object; nay, they are likely to injure the cause they are framed to advance.
    Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)

    The humblest observer who goes to the mines sees and says that gold-digging is of the character of a lottery; the gold thus obtained is not the same thing with the wages of honest toil. But, practically, he forgets what he has seen, for he has seen only the fact, not the principle, and goes into trade there, that is, buys a ticket in what commonly proves another lottery, where the fact is not so obvious.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)