• The melancholy thing in our public life is the insane desire to get higher.

    Rutherford B. Hayes: The melancholy thing in our public life is the insane desire to get higher.
    Letter "to a leading editor" on April 10, 1875. "The Life Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes", edited by James Quay Howard, ch. X, p. 144, www.gutenberg.org. 2007.