Solitude is as needful to the imagination as society is wholesome for the character.

Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne.

And what is so rare as a day in June? Then, if ever, come perfect days.

Sincerity is impossible, unless it pervade the whole being, and the pretence of it saps the very foundation of character.

Folks never understand the folks they hate.

Poetry is something to make us wiser and better, by continually revealing those types of beauty and truth, which God has set in all men's souls.

It is by presence of mind in untried emergencies that the native metal of man is tested.

Once to every person and nation come the moment to decide. In the conflict of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side.

Compromise makes a good umbrella, but a poor roof; it is temporary expedient, often wise in party politics, almost sure to be unwise in statesmanship.

A great man is made up of qualities that meet or make great occasions.

In the ocean of baseness, the deeper we get, the easier the sinking.

There is no good in arguing with the inevitable. The only argument available with an east wind is to put on your overcoat.

Death is delightful. Death is dawn, The waking from a weary night Of fevers unto truth and light.

Democracy is the form of government that gives every man the right to be his own oppressor.

He who is firmly seated in authority soon learns to think security, and not progress, the highest lesson in statecraft.

I have always been of the mind that in a democracy manners are the only effective weapons against the bowie-knife.

In creating, the only hard thing is to begin: a grass blade's no easier to make than an oak.

Mishaps are like knives, that either serve us or cut us, as we grasp them by the blade or the handle.

The greatest homage we can pay to truth, is to use it.

The mind can weave itself warmly in the cocoon of its own thoughts, and dwell a hermit anywhere.