Henry Fountain Ashurst Quotes

9 Sourced Quotes

No man is fit to be a Senator... unless he is willing to surrender his political life for great principle.

Henry Fountain Ashurst
There has never been superadded to these vices of mine the withering, embalming vice of consistency.

Henry Fountain Ashurst
Poker teaches self-reliance, self-control, self-respect, self-denial, and independence. But when cards are wild or are given fictitious authority, the noble game is robbed of its romance, grace and stimulation and degenerates into a gambling scheme.

Henry Fountain Ashurst
It is still an open question as to whether mankind or insects shall ultimately inherit the earth. It is my opinion that mankind … has about a 50-50 chance....

Henry Fountain Ashurst
A speech is entertaining only when serenely detached from all information.

Henry Fountain Ashurst
I suffer from cacoethes loquendi, a mania or itch for talking, and from vanity... and morbidity, and, as is obvious to everyone who knows me, an inborn, an inveterate flair for histrionics. … I am pachydermatous. … I am a veritable peripatetic bifurcated volcano on behalf of Democratic principles.

Henry Fountain Ashurst
I could throw 56-pound words clear across the Grand Canyon. As a matter of course, I went into politics.

Henry Fountain Ashurst
… I shall not waste any time on such miserable twaddle as to say that I ought to have been elected. … It is the undoubted right of the people to change their servants, and to remove one and displace him with another at any time they choose, for a good reason, for a bad reason, or for no reason at all. If we are to remain a free people, it is the duty of public servants not grumpily and sourly to accept the verdict of the majority, but joyously to accept that verdict....

Henry Fountain Ashurst
Whoever in his public services is handcuffed and shackled by the vice of consistency will be a man not free to act as various questions come before him from time to time; he will be a statesman locked in a prison house, keys to which are in the keeping of days and events that are dead. Let me quote Emerson: 'A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen.'

Henry Fountain Ashurst