The poor man wants many things; the covetous man, all.

For God's sake, be economical with your lamps and candles! not a gallon you burn, but at least one drop of man's blood was spilled for it.

In a multitude of acquaintances is less security, than in one faithful friend.

Surely no mere mortal who has at all gone down into himself will ever pretend that his slightest thought or act solely originates in his own defined identity.

Where lies the final harbor, whence we unmoor no more? In what rapt ether sails the world, of which the weariest will never weary? Where is the foundling’s father hidden? Our souls are like those orphans whose unwedded mothers die in bearing them: the secret of our paternity lies in their grave, and we must there to learn it.

But the might-have-been is but boggy ground to build upon.

The western spirit is, or will yet be (for no other is, or can be) the true American one.