The stars are distant and unobtrusive, but bright and enduring as our fairest and most memorable experiences.

I foresee the time when the painter will paint that scene, no longer going to Rome for a subject; the poet will sing it; the historian record it; and, with the Landing of the Pilgrims and the Declaration of Independence, it will be the ornament of some future national gallery, when at least the present form of slavery shall be no more here. We shall then be at liberty to weep for Captain Brown. Then, and not till then, we will take our revenge.

I do not believe there are eight hundred human beings on the globe.

It is never too late to give up our prejudices. No way of thinking or doing, however, ancient, can be trusted without proof. ... Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new.

What is man but a mass of thawing clay?

He who cannot exaggerate is not qualified to utter truth.

There is no ill which may not be dissipated, like the dark, if you let in a stronger light upon it.