I wished only to be set down in Canada, and take one honest walk there as I might in Concord woods of an afternoon.

Every man will be a poet if he can; otherwise a philosopher or man of science. This proves the superiority of the poet.

Our poets have sung of wine, the product of a foreign plant which commonly they never saw, as if our own plants had no juice in them more than the singers.

Truth never turns to rebuke falsehood; her own straightforwardness is the severest correction.

In our daily intercourse with men, our nobler faculties are dormant and suffered to rust. None will pay us the compliment to expect nobleness from us. Though we have gold to give, they demand only copper.

There is but one stage for the peasant and the actor.

If rightly made, a boat would be a sort of amphibious animal, a creature of two elements, related by one half its structure to some swift and shapely fish, and by the other to some strong-winged and graceful bird.