It is upon record, that three centuries ago the tongue of the Right Whale was esteemed a great delicacy in France, and commanded large prices there.

Let America add Mexico to Texas, and pile Cuba upon Canada; let the English overswarm all India, and hang out their blazing banner from the sun; two thirds of this terraqueous globe are the Nantucketer's. For the sea is his; he owns it.

I am a man who, from his youth upwards, has been filled with a profound conviction that the easiest way of life is the best.

Climate of Egypt in winter is the reign of spring upon earth, & summer in the air, and tranquility in the heat.

Woe to him who seeks to please rather than appall.

A good laugh is a mighty good thing, and rather too scarce a good thing; the more's the pity. So, if any one man, in his own proper person, afford stuff for a good joke to anybody, let him not be backward, but let him cheerfully allow himself to spend and be spent in that way. And the man that has anything bountifully laughable about him, be sure there is more in that man than you perhaps think for.

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