i like butter, don't you?

Abraham Lincoln, on President Polk and the war he waged against Mexico:

“Trusting to escape scrutiny, by fixing the public gaze upon the exceeding brightness of military glory – that attractive rainbow, that rises in showers of blood – that serpent’s eye, that charms to destroy – he plunged into war.”

George Washington, on the war with England and his responsibilities as General:

“I shall constantly bear in mind that as the sword was the last resort for the preservation of our liberties, so it ought to be the first to be laid aside when those liberties are firmly established.”

I wish more presidents were writers.