My memory was a sieve. I could remember nothing. Dates, names, appointments, faces – everything escaped me. I said to my wife, “Catherine, I shall never make a successful politician, for I cannot remember, and that is a prime necessity of politicians.” My wife told me I must train my memory. So, when I came home that night, I sat down and spent fifteen minutes...

Concerned that he lacked a native facility for remembering  names and appointments, and believing that “a politician who sees a man once should remember him forever,” Weed consciously trained his memory. He spent fifteen minutes every night telling his wife, Catherine, everything that had happened to him that day, everyone he had met and the exact words...

Bate’s friend Charles Gibson maintained that as wicked as the code was, he vulgar public behaviour following the demise of the practice was worse still. “The code preserved a dignity, justice and decorum that have since been lost,” he argued, “to the great detriment of the professions, the public and the government. The present generation will think me...

Never late for appointments, he had no patience with the sin of tardiness, which robbed precious minutes of life from the person who was kept waiting. - From Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin, referring to Salmon Chase’s belief on being late (p. 17)

If his devotion were determined by his lack of “faith in ceremonials and forms,” or by his failure “to observe the Sabbath very scrupulously,” Swett added, “he would fall far short of the standard.” However, if he were judged “by the higher rule of purity of conduct, of honesty of motive, of unyielding fidelity to the right,” or by his powerful belief...

The person who says it can’t be done shouldn’t get in the way of the person doing it. – Chinese proverb