In America the geography is sublime, but the men are not; the inventions are excellent, but the inventors one is sometimes ashamed of.

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.

I count him a great man who inhabits a higher sphere of thought, into which other men rise with labor and difficulty; he has but to open his eyes to see things in a true light, and in large relations; whilst they must make painful corrections, and keep a vigilant eye on many sources of error.

Sitting back in the evening, stargazing and stroking your dog, is an infallible remedy.

No matter how much faculty of idle seeing a man has, the step from knowing to doing is rarely taken.

What we have learned from other becomes our own reflection.

The bitterest tragic element in life to be derived from an intellectual source is the belief in a brute Fate or Destiny.