If there is any hell more unprincipled than our rulers, and we, the ruled, I feel curious to see it.

Most men appear never to have considered what a house is, and are actually though needlessly poor all their lives because they think that they must have such a one as their neighbors have. ... Shall we always study to obtain more, and not sometimes be content with less?

I was not designed to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest.

We can conceive of nothing more fair than something which we have experienced.

It is a surprising and memorable, as well as valuable experience, to be lost in the woods any time.

Some are dinning in our ears that we Americans, and moderns generally, are intellectual dwarfs compared with the ancients, or eventhe Elizabethan men. But what is that to the purpose? A living dog is better than a dead lion. Shall a man go and hang himself because he belongs to the race of pygmies, and not be the biggest pygmy that he can? Let every one mind his own business, and endeavor to be what he was made.

While my friend was my friend, he flattered me, and I never heard the truth from him. When he became my enemy, he shot it to me on a poisoned arrow.