“I was the conductor of the Underground Railroad for eight years, and I can say what most conductors can't say — I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger.”

As quoted in Women's Words : The Columbia Book of Quotations by Women (1996) by Mary Biggs, p. 2

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Harriet Tubman 17
African-American abolitionist and humanitarian 1820–1913

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Context: p>Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.
Shovel them under and let me work —
I am the grass; I cover all. And pile them high at Gettysburg
And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun. Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor:
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“This idea was vague at the moment, as I say, and I did not work it out for some years, but I think I never quite lost track of it from that time.”

Albert Jay Nock (1870–1945) American journalist

"Anarchist's Progress" in The American Mercury (1927); § III : To Abolish Crime or to Monopolize It? http://www.mises.org/daily/2714
Context: Once, I remember, I ran across the case of a boy who had been sentenced to prison, a poor, scared little brat, who had intended something no worse than mischief, and it turned out to be a crime. The judge said he disliked to sentence the lad; it seemed the wrong thing to do; but the law left him no option. I was struck by this. The judge, then, was doing something as an official that he would not dream of doing as a man; and he could do it without any sense of responsibility, or discomfort, simply because he was acting as an official and not as a man. On this principle of action, it seemed to me that one could commit almost any kind of crime without getting into trouble with one's conscience.
Clearly, a great crime had been committed against this boy; yet nobody who had had a hand in it — the judge, the jury, the prosecutor, the complaining witness, the policemen and jailers — felt any responsibility about it, because they were not acting as men, but as officials. Clearly, too, the public did not regard them as criminals, but rather as upright and conscientious men.
The idea came to me then, vaguely but unmistakably, that if the primary intention of government was not to abolish crime but merely to monopolize crime, no better device could be found for doing it than the inculcation of precisely this frame of mind in the officials and in the public; for the effect of this was to exempt both from any allegiance to those sanctions of humanity or decency which anyone of either class, acting as an individual, would have felt himself bound to respect — nay, would have wished to respect. This idea was vague at the moment, as I say, and I did not work it out for some years, but I think I never quite lost track of it from that time.

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“Emptiness is a conductor
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“I deny that either singers or conductors can "create" or work creatively – this, as I have always said, is a conception that leads to the abyss.”

Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901) Italian composer

Io non posso ammettere, né nei cantanti, né nei direttori la facoltà di creare, che come dissi prima, è un principio che conduce all'abisso.
Letter to Giulio Ricordi, April 11, 1871, cited from Franco Abbiati Giuseppe Verdi (Milano: Ricordi, 1959) vol. 3, p. 448; translation from Franz Werfel and Paul Stefan (eds.), Edward Downes (trans.) Verdi: The Man in His Letters (New York: L. B. Fischer, 1942) pp. 301-2.

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“I want to say this to the television audience. I made my mistakes, but in all of my years of public life, I have never profited, never profited from public service. I have earned every cent. And in all of my years of public life, I have never obstructed justice. And I think, too, that I can say that in my years of public life, that I welcome this kind of examination because people have got to know whether or not their President is a crook. Well, I'm not a crook.”

Richard Nixon (1913–1994) 37th President of the United States of America

I've earned everything I've got.
Televised press conference with 400 Associated Press Managing Editors at Walt Disney World, Florida. (17 November 1973)
Often transcribed as "I am not a crook."
'I Am Not A Crook': How A Phrase Got A Life Of Its Own http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=245830047, on National Public Radio
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“I sought trains; I found passengers.”

Source: The Great Railway Bazaar (1975), Ch. 1.

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“I often say after eight years in Washington, I longed for the realism and sincerity of Hollywood.”

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“I think the most un-American thing you can say is, “You can't say that.””

Garrison Keillor (1942) American radio host and writer

As quoted in The Nastiest Things Ever Said About Democrats (2006) by Martin Higgins, p. 171, and The Nastiest Things Ever Said About Republicans (2006) by Martin Higgins, p. 204

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