We are not a nation, so much as a world; for unless we claim all the world for our sire, like Melchisedec, we are without father or mother.

The dinner-hour is the summer of the day: full of sunshine, I grant; but not like the mellow autumn of supper.

Whatever has made, or does make, or may make music, should be held sacred as the golden bridle-bit of the Shah of Persia's horse,and the golden hammer, with which his hoofs are shod.

It is better to fail in originality, than to succeed in imitation. He who has never failed somewhere, that man can not be great. Failure is the true test of greatness.

Men there are, who having quite done with the world, all its merely worldly contents are become so far indifferent, that they carelittle of what mere worldly imprudence they may be guilty.

So long as a man-of-war exists, it must ever remain a picture of much that is tyrannical and repelling in human nature.

In some things, we Americans leave to other countries the carrying out of the principle that stands at the head of our Declaration of Independence.