The purpose of writing is to hold a mirror to nature, but too much today is written from small mirrors in vanity cases.

Something deathless and dangerous in the world sweeps past you...It is something fearful and ominous, something turbulent and to be dreaded, which distends the drama to include the life of nations as well as of men. It is an ageless warning.

Reasoning with a child is fine, if you can reach the child's reason without destroying your own.

What happiness is, no person can say for another. But no one, I am convinced, can be happy who lives only for himself. The joy of living comes from immersion in something that we know to be bigger, better, more enduring and worthier than we are.

Nowhere are prejudices more mistaken for truth, passion for reason and invective for documentation than in politics.

Friendship should be a private pleasure, not a public boast. I loathe those braggarts who are forever trying to invest themselves with importance by calling important people by their first names in or out of print. Such first-naming for effect makes me cringe.

I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with Blood.