Nature has from the first expanded the minute blossoms of the forest only toward the heavens, above men's heads and unobserved bythem. We see only the flowers that are under our feet in the meadows.

The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer.

At death our friends and relatives either draw nearer to us and are found out, or depart farther from us and are forgotten. Friends are as often brought nearer together as separated by death.

Every man looks at his wood-pile with a kind of affection.

It takes two to speak the truth: one to speak, and another to hear.

Those who, while they disapprove of the character and measures of a government, yield to it their allegiance and support are undoubtedly its most conscientious supporters, and so frequently the most serious obstacles to reform.

When a sixth of the population of a nation which has undertaken to be the refuge of liberty are slaves, and a whole country [Mexico] is unjustly overrun and conquered by a foreign army, and subjected to military law, I think that it is not too soon for honest men to rebel and revolutionize. What makes this duty the more urgent is the fact that the country so overrun is not our own, but ours is the invading army.