Nothing goes by luck in composition. It allows of no tricks. The best you can write will be the best you are.

The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready.

Steady labor with the hands, which engrosses the attention also, is unquestionably the best method of removing palaver and sentimentality out of one's style, both of speaking and writing.

In an ancient and dead language, any recognition of living nature attracts us. These are such sentences as were written while grass grew and water ran. It is no small recommendation when a book will stand the test of mere unobstructed sunshine and daylight.

I would remind my countrymen that they are to be men first, and Americans only at a late and convenient hour.

We never conceive the greatness of our fates.

Men profess to be lovers of music, but for the most part they give no evidence in their opinions and lives that they have heard it.