There is danger that we lose sight of what our friend is absolutely, while considering what she is to us alone.

Talk about slavery! It is not the peculiar institution of the South. It exists wherever men are bought and sold, wherever a man allows himself to be made a mere thing or a tool, and surrenders his inalienable rights of reason and conscience. Indeed, this slavery is more complete than that which enslaves the body alone.

I have always endeavored to acquire strict business habits; they are indispensable to every man. If your trade is with the Celestial Empire, then some small counting house on the coast, in some Salem harbor, will be fixture enough.

The frontiers are not east or west, north or south; but wherever a man fronts a fact, though that fact be a neighbor, there is anunsettled wilderness between him and Canada, between him and the setting sun, or, farther still, between him and it. Let him build himself a log house with the bark on where he is, fronting IT, and wage there an Old French war for seven or seventy years, with Indians and Rangers, or whatever else may come between him and the reality, and save his scalp if he can.

Let your capital be simplicity and contentment.

I never was so rapid in my virtue but my vice kept up with me.

Rise free from care before the dawn, and seek adventures.