We are constituted a good deal like chickens, which, taken from the hen, and put in a basket of cotton in the chimney-corner, willoften peep till they die, nevertheless; but if you put in a book, or anything heavy, which will press down the cotton, and feel like the hen, they go to sleep directly.

Most men cry better than they speak. You get more nurture out of them by pinching than addressing them.

Most of the stone a nation hammers goes toward its tomb only. It buries itself alive.

The laboring man has not leisure for a true integrity day by day.

The question is whether you can bear freedom. At present the vast majority of men, whether white or black, require the discipline of labor which enslaves them for their own good.

You boast of spending a tenth part of your income in charity; may be you should spend the nine tenths so, and done with it.

The pleasures of the intellect are permanent, the pleasures of the heart are transitory.