We are only what we are; not what we would be; nor every thing we hope for. We are but a step in a scale, that reaches further above us than below.

The pulpit is ever this earth's foremost part; all the rest comes in its rear; the pulpit leads the world. From thence it is the storm of God's quick wrath is first descried, and the bow must bearthe earliest brunt. From thence it is the God of breezes fair or foul is first invokedfor favorable winds. Yes, the world's a ship on its passage out, and not a voyage complete; and the pulpit is its prow.

In metropolitan cases, the love of the most single-eyed lover, almost invariably, is nothing more than the ultimate settling of innumerable wandering glances upon some one specific object.

I could...see in Emerson...that had he lived in those days when the world was made, he might have offered some valuable suggestions.

For small erections may be finished by their first architects; grand ones, true ones, ever leave the copestone to posterity. God keep me from ever completing anything. This whole book is but a draught—nay, but the draught of a draught. Oh, Time, Strength, Cash, and Patience!

I do not think I have any uncharitable prejudice against the rattlesnake, still, I should not like to be one.

beauty is like piety--you cannot run and read it; tranquility and constancy, with, now-a-days, an easy chair, are needed.