It is the vain endeavor to make ourselves what we are not that has strewn history with so many broken purposes and lives left in the rough.

Endurance is the crowning quality, And patience all the passion of great hearts.

That pernicious sentiment, "Our country, right or wrong."

In vain we call old notions fudge, And bend our conscience to our dealing; The Ten Commandments will not budge, And stealing will continue stealing.

That best academy, a mother's knee.

How I do love the earth. I feel it thrill under my feet. I feel somehow as if it were conscious of my love, as if something passed into my dancing blood from it.

There is no better ballast for keeping the mind steady on its keel, and saving it from all risk of crankiness, than business.