Wilson was a visionary who liked to identify himself with "forward-looking man"; Harding ... was as old-fashioned as those wooden ...Indians which used to stand in front of cigar stores.... Wilson thought in terms of the whole world; Harding was for America first. And, finally, whereas Wilson wanted America to exert itself nobly, Harding wanted to give it a rest.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Warren G. Harding invented the word "normalcy," And the lesser-known "bloviate," meaning, one imagines,... To spout, to spew aimless verbiage.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
For a hundred and fifty years, in the pasture of dead horses, roots of pine trees pushed through the pale curves of your ribs..., yellow blossoms flourished above you in autumn, and in winter frost heaved your bones in the ground--old toilers, soil makers: O Roger, Mackerel, Riley, Ned, Nellie, Chester, Lady Ghost.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
My desire is that your office [the New York Customhouse] shall be conducted on strictly business principles.... In making appointm...ents and removals of subordinates, you should be perfectly independent of mere influence. Neither my recommendation, nor that of the Secretary of the Treasury, nor the recommendation of any Member of Congress, or other influential person, should be specially regarded. Let appointments and removals be made ... by fixed rules.... Let no man be put out merely because he is a friend of the late collector [Chester A. Arthur], and no man be put in merely because he is our friend.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is difficult to believe that even idiots ever succumbed to such transparent contradictions, to such gaudy processions of mere c...ounter-words, to so vast and obvious a nonsensicality ... sentence after sentence that has no apparent meaning at all--stuff quite as bad as the worst bosh of Warren Gamaliel Harding.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
All Coolidge had to do in 1924 was to keep his mean trap shut, to be elected. All Harding had to do in 1920 was repeat "Avoid fore...ign entanglements." All Hoover had to do in 1928 was to endorse Coolidge. All Roosevelt had to do in 1932 was to point to Hoover.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
"I don't think I shall ever like that Mr. Slope," said Mr. Harding. "Like him!" roared the archdeacon, standing still for a m...oment to give more force to his voice; "like him!" All the ravens of the close cawed their assent.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There are very many characteristics which go into making a model civil servant. Prominent among them are probity, industry, good s...ense, good habits, good temper, patience, order, courtesy, tact, self-reliance, many deference to superior officers, and many consideration for inferiors.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I trust the time is nigh when, with the universal assent of civilized people, all international differences shall be determined wi...thout resort to arms by the benignant processes of civilization.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »