True politeness is to social life what oil is to machinery, a thing to oil the ruts and grooves of existence. False politeness can shine without warming and glitter without vivifying.

The respect that is only bought by gold is not worth much.

A room to myself is a luxury that I do not always enjoy.

I envy neither the heart nor the head of any legislator who has been born to an inheritance of privileges, who has behind him agesof education, dominion, civilization, and Christianity, if he stands opposed to the passage of a national education bill, whose purpose is to secure education to the children of those who were born under the shadow of institutions which made it a crime to read.

There is material among us for the broadest comedies and the deepest tragedies, but, besides money and leisure, it needs patience, perseverance, courage, and the hand of an artist to weave it into the literature of the country.

Slavery is dead, but the spirit which animated it still lives.

I belong to this race, and when it is down I belong to a down race; when it is up I belong to a risen race.