I sometimes despair of getting anything quite simple and honest done in this world by the help of men. They would have to be passed through a powerful press first, to squeeze their old notions out of them, so that they would not soon get upon their legs again.

There is no just and serene criticism as yet.

To say that a man is your Friend means commonly no more than this, that he is not your enemy.

I am a citizen of the world first, and of this country at a later and more convenient hour.

How earthy old people become --moldy as the grave! Their wisdom smacks of the earth. There is no foretaste of immortality in it. They remind me of earthworms and mole crickets.

We do not associate the idea of antiquity with the ocean, nor wonder how it looked a thousand years ago, as we do of the land, for it was equally wild and unfathomable always.

Be true to your work, your word, and your friend.