I received a letter from a lad asking me for an easy berth. To this I replied: You cannot be an editor; do not try the law; do not think of the ministry; let alone all ships and merchandise; abhor politics; don't practice medicine; be not a farmer or a soldier or a sailor; don't study, don't think. None of these are easy. O, my son, you have come into a hard world. I know of only one easy place in it, and that is the grave!

What place is so rugged and so homely that there is no beauty; if you only have a sensibility to beauty?

Of all joyful, smiling, ever-laughing experiences, there are none like those which spring from true religion.

It is the end of art to inoculate men with the love of nature.

There is no slave out of heaven like a loving woman; and of all loving women, there is no such slave as a mother.

Mirthfulness is in the mind and you cannot get it out. It is just as good in its place as conscience or veneration.

A traitor is good fruit to hang from the boughs of the tree of liberty.