If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.

There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root, and it may be that he who bestows the largest amount of time and money on the needy is doing the most by his mode of life to produce that misery which he strives in vain to relieve.

We perceive that the schemers return again and again to common sense and labor. Such is the evidence of history.

Our village life would stagnate if it were not for the unexplored forests and meadows which surround it.

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

Books that are books are all that you want, and there are but a half dozen in any thousand.

The best books are not read even by those who are called good readers. What does our Concord culture amount to? There is in this town, with a very few exceptions, no taste for the best or for very good books even in English literature, whose words all can read and spell.