I thought as I rode in the cold pleasant light of Sunday morning how silent & passive nature offers, every morn, her wealth to man; she is immensely rich, he is welcome to her entire goods, which he speaks no word, only leaves over doors ajar, hall, store room, & cellar. He may do as he will: if he takes her hint & uses her goods, she speaks no word; if he blunders & starves, she says nothing.

Wild liberty breeds iron conscience; natures with great impulses have great resources, and return from far.

Shakespeare will never be made by the study of Shakespeare.

Go out of the house to see the moon, and 't is mere tinsel; it will not please as when its light shines upon your necessary journey. The beauty that shimmers in the yellow afternoons of October, who could ever clutch it? Go forth to find it, and it is gone: 't is only a mirage as you look from the windows of diligence.

Give no bounties: make equal laws: secure life and prosperity and you need not give alms.

An orator or author is never successful till he has learned to make his words smaller than his ideas.

One man's justice is another's injustice; one man's beauty another's ugliness; one man's wisdom anpther's folly.