The Yankee is one who, if he once gets his teeth set on a thing, all creation can't make him let go.

A seashell should be the crest of England, not only because it represents a power built on the waves, but also the hard finish ofthe men. The Englishman is finished like a cowry or a murex.

A man should give us a sense of mass.

But wise men pierce this rotten diction and fasten words again to visible things; so that picturesque language is at once a commanding certificate that he who employs it, is a man in alliance with truth and God.

This knot of nature is so well tied that nobody was ever cunning enough to find the two ends.

Every vice is only an exaggeration of a necessary and virtuous function.

For what avail the plough or sail, or land or life, if freedom fail?