As Abraham Lincoln once said, humor is "an emollient" that "saves me much friction and distress." Lincoln reminds us that not all speeches will notch a place in history. The following are some other comments by presidents that have touched the masses, for both good and bad.

A heckler once tossed a cabbage at William Howard Taft during a political speech, to which Taft quipped, "Ladies and gentlemen, I see that one of my opponents has lost its head."

In a 1938 address to the Daughters of the American Revolution, Franklin Roosevelt started his speech with, "Fellow immigrants"

Lyndon Johnson was fond of differentiating between two kinds of speeches: "The Mother Hubbard speech, which, like the garment, covers everything but touches nothing; and the French bathing suit speech, which covers only the essential points."

A polished politico, James A. Garfield knew when to stop talking. At a campaign event in Nashua, N.H., he shared the podium with Eugene Hale, a congressman from Maine whose speech lasted over two hours. The audience grew impatient and began calling for Garfield. At his turn, Garfield asked the audience to remain for exactly 30 more minutes. He delivered a rousing speech, which lasted half an hour, and so engaged those in the audience that they called for more. But he did not continue.

Bob Hardesty, a speechwriter for LBJ, recalls a time when he and another speechwriter were summoned to the Oval Office to be introduced to a longtime LBJ friend as "the best speechwriters any president ever had." While Hardesty was proud of the proclamation, he later heard an explanation for the lofty praise. "They're not temperamental," observed LBJ. "They don't miss deadlines. And they don't get drunk the night before a major speech."

After hecklers interrupted a Bill Clinton speech in Denver in October 1996, he said, "Look, you shouldn't be too upset about that. You know what Mark Twain said about that? He said that every dog needs a few fleas. Now, I'll admit, I've had a few more than I wanted. But Mark Twain said every dog needs a few fleas because they keep him from worrying so much about being a dog."

On a visit to Omaha, Gerald Ford was approached by a sweet little old lady at a post-address reception. "I hear you spoke here tonight," she told Ford. "Oh, it was nothing," replied Ford with modesty. "Yes," agreed the woman. "That's what I heard."

In July 1923, Herbert Hoover wrote a few paragraphs for President Warren Harding's Independence Day speech announcing the abolition of the 12-hour day and the 84-hour workweek. Hoover's prose was so different from the rest of the speech that Harding stumbled over the passage when reading it. While the audience applauded the announcement, Harding whispered to Hoover, "Damn it, Hoover, why don't you write the same English as I do?"

A cabinet member once praised Woodrow Wilson for his short speeches and asked him how long it took to prepare them. "It depends," answered Wilson. "If I am to speak 10 minutes, I need a week for preparation; if 15 minutes, three days; if half an hour, two days; if an hour, I am ready now."

En route for an event in St. Louis, Calvin Coolidge's train stopped for coal and water at a small town. Entering the president's private car, an aide found the president fast asleep; tapping the president on the shoulder, the aide said, "Mr. President, there are about 2,500 people waiting to see you." Coolidge got up, smoothed his hair and jacket, and went to the observation deck to greet the crowd. Seeing Coolidge, the crowd gave a loud ovation and applauded even more loudly for the first lady. The local master of ceremonies addressed the people who had gathered, telling them to be quiet for the president's speech. Just when the president was about to speak, there was a hiss of air as the brakes were released, and the train began rolling out of town. The president, still giving his official presidential smile, raised his hand to greet the crowd and said, "Goodbye."

Sources: InfoPlease; Great Political Wit: Laughing (Almost) All the Way to the White House by Bob Dole (1998); Presidential Anecdotes by Paul F. Boller Jr. (1981)