The imagination, once awakened, must and will work, and ought to work

If a test of civilization be sought, none can be so sure as the condition of that half of society over which the other half has power.

Goodness and simplicity are indissolubly united.-The bad are the most sophisticated, all the world over, and the good the least.

If the national mind of America be judged of by its legislation, it is of a very high order ... If the American nation be judged of by its literature, it may be pronounced to have no mind at all.

I want to be a free rover on the breezy common of the universe.

The lesson taught us by these kindly commentators on my present experience is that dogmatic faith compels the best minds and hearts to narrowness and insolence.

I have suffered, like other writers, from indolence, irresolution, distaste to my work, absence of 'inspiration,' and all that: but I have also found that sitting down, however reluctantly, with the pen in my hand, I have never worked for one quarter of an hour without finding myself in full train.