It is true, I never assisted the sun materially in his rising, but doubt not, it was of the last importance only to be present at it.

It is hard to have a Southern overseer; it is worse to have a Northern one; but worst of all when you are yourself the slave-driver.

Nowadays almost all man's improvements, so called, as the building of houses and the cutting down of the forest and of all large trees, simply deform the landscape, and make it more and more tame and cheap.

Any nobleness begins at once to refine a man's features, any meanness or sensuality to imbrute them.

If there is any hell more unprincipled than our rulers, and we, the ruled, I feel curious to see it.

I am not responsible for the successful working of the machinery of society.

Consider the islands bearing the names of all the saints, bristling with forts like chestnut-burs, or Echinidæ, yet the police will not let a couple of Irishmen have a private sparring- match on one of them, as it is a government monopoly; all the great seaports are in a boxing attitude, and you must sail prudently between two tiers of stony knuckles before you come to feel the warmth of their breasts.