Necessity does everything well. In our condition of universal dependence, it seems heroic to let the petitioner be the judge of his necessity, and to give all that is asked, though at great inconvenience.

A song is no song unless the circumstance is free and fine. If a singer sing from a sense of duty or from seeing no way to escape,I had rather have none. Those only can sleep who do not care to sleep; and those only write or speak best who do not too much respect the writing or the speaking.

Genius is power, talent is applicability.

My good hoe as it bites the ground revenges my wrongs, and I have less lust to bite my enemies. In the smoothing the rough hillocks, I smooth my temper.

An individual has a healthy personality to the exact degree to which they have the propensity to look for the good in every situation.

Each age, it is found, must write its own books; or rather, each generation for the next succeeding.

Vigor is contagious, and whatever makes us either think or feel strongly adds to our power and enlarges our field of action.