Great towers take time to construct.

Book! You lie there; the fact is, you books must know your places. You'll do to give us the bare words and facts, but we come in to supply the thoughts.

A ship is a bit of terra firma cut off from the main; it is a state in itself; and the captain is its king.

We Americans are the peculiar, chosen people - the Israel of our time; we bear the ark of the liberties of the world.

He who has never failed somewhere, that man can not be great. Failure is the true test of greatness. And if it be said, that continual success is a proof that a man wisely knows his powers,--it is only to be added, that, in that case, he knows them to be small.

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

Is it possible, after all, that spite of bricks and shaven faces, this world we live in is brimmed with wonders, and I and all mankind, beneath our garbs of common-placeness, conceal enigmas that the stars themselves, and perhaps the highest seraphim can not resolve?