Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.

Nature and human life are as various as our several constitutions. Who shall say what prospect life offers to another?

Every man has to learn the points of the compass again as often as he awakes, whether from sleep or any abstraction.

There should always be some flowering and maturing of the fruits of nature in the cooking process.

As for me, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are now only the subtlest imaginable essences, which would not stain the morning sky.

The past is only so heroic as we see it. It is the canvas on which our idea of heroism is painted, and so, in one sense, the dim prospectus of our future field.

If there is nothing new on the earth, still the traveler always has a resource in the skies. They are constantly turning a new page to view. The wind sets the types on this blue ground, and the inquiring may always read a new truth there.