I quote another man's saying; unluckily, that other withdraws himself in the same way, and quotes me.

Words are alive. Cut them and they bleed.

The orator is thereby an orator that keeps his feet ever on a fact.

That which shows God in me, fortifies me. That which shows God out of me, makes me a wart and a wen.

But the mark of American merit in painting, in sculpture, in poetry, in fiction, in eloquence, seems to be a certain grace withoutgrandeur, and itself not new but derivative; a vase of fair outline, but empty,--which whoso sees, may fill with what wit and character is in him, but which does not, like the charged cloud, overflow with terrible beauty, and emit lightnings on all beholders.

We swim, day by day, on a river of delusions, and are effectually amused with houses and towns in the air, of which the men aboutus are dupes. But life is a sincerity.

Perhaps love is only the highest symbol of friendship, as all other things seem symbols of love.