Shams and delusions are esteemed for soundest truths, while reality is fabulous. If men would steadily observe realities only, and not allow themselves to be deluded, life ... would be like a fairy tale and the Arabian Nights' Entertainments.

Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short.

In the long run, men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, they had better aim at something high.

The condition-of-England question is a practical one. The condition of England demands a hero, not a poet.

Every New Englander might easily raise all his own breadstuffs in this land of rye and Indian corn, and not depend on distant andfluctuating markets for them. Yet so far are we from simplicity and independence that, in Concord, fresh and sweet meal is rarely sold in the shops, and hominy and corn in a still coarser form are hardly used by any.

That virtue we appreciate is as much ours as another s. We see so much only as we possess.

A fact may blossom into a truth.