No people require maxims so much as the American. The reason is obvious: the country is so vast, the people always going somewhere, from Oregon apple valley to boreal New England, that we do not know whether to be temperate orchards or sterile climate.

Man pines to live but cannot endure the days of his life.

We are uneasy with an affectionate man, for we are positive he wants something of us, particularly our love.

Nothing in our times has become so unattractive as virtue.

We can only write well about our sins because it is too difficult to recall a virtuous act or even whether it was the result of good or evil motives.

Men are too unstable to be just; they are crabbed because they have not passed water at the usual time, or testy because they have not been stroked or praised.

Writing is conscience, scruple, and the farming of our ancestors.