Do we call this the land of the free? What is it to be free from King George the Fourth and continue the slaves of prejudice? What is it to be born free and equal, and not to live? What is the value of any political freedom, but as a means to moral freedom?

However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are.

It would be no reproach to a philosopher, that he knew the future better than the past, or even than the present. It is better worth knowing.

It is true, these Roman Catholics, priests and all, impress me as a people who have fallen far behind the significance of their symbols. It is as if an ox had strayed into a church and were trying to bethink himself. Nevertheless, they are capable of reverence; but we Yankees are a people in whom this sentiment has nearly died out, and in this respect we cannot bethink ourselves even as oxen.

Yet some can be patriotic who have no self-respect, and sacrifice the greater to the less. They love the soil which makes their graves, but have no sympathy with the spirit which may still animate their clay. Patriotism is a maggot in their heads.

It is childish to rest in the discovery of mere coincidences, or of partial and extraneous laws.

Whatever sentence will bear to be read twice, we may be sure was thought twice.