They who are continually shocked by slavery have some right to be shocked by the violent death of the slaveholder, but no others.Such will be more shocked by his life than by his death.

When we consider what, to use the words of the catechism, is the chief end of man, and what are the true necessaries and means of life, it appears as if men had deliberately chosen the common mode of living because they preferred it to any other. Yet they honestly think there is no choice left.

When we are unhurried and wise, we perceive that only great and worthy things have any permanent and absolute existence, that petty fears and petty pleasures are but the shadow of the reality.

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

The first pleasant days of spring come out like a squirrel and go in again.

Most men, even in this comparatively free country, through mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them.

Our actual Friends are but distant relations of those to whom we are pledged.