Every man will be a poet if he can; otherwise a philosopher or man of science. This proves the superiority of the poet.

If Nature is our mother, then God is our father.

Through the din and desultoriness of noon, even in the most Oriental city, is seen the fresh and primitive and savage nature, in which Scythians and Ethiopians and Indians dwell. What is echo, what are light and shade, day and night, ocean and stars, earthquake and eclipse, there? The works of man are everywhere swallowed up in the immensity of nature. The AEgean Sea is but Lake Huron still to the Indian.

As for doing good; that is one of the professions which is full. Moreover I have tried it fairly and, strange as it may seem, am satisfied that it does not agree with my constitution.

While the Governor, and the Mayor, and countless officers of the Commonwealth are at large, the champions of liberty are imprisoned.

Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice.

He who cannot read is worse than deaf and blind, is yet but half alive, is still-born.