Alas for America as I must so often say, the ungirt, the diffuse, the profuse, procumbent, one wide ground juniper, out of which no cedar, no oak will rear up a mast to the clouds! It all runs to leaves, to suckers, to tendrils, to miscellany. The air is loaded with poppy, with imbecility, with dispersion, & sloth.

Genius has infused itself into nature. It indicates itself by a small excess of good, a small balance in brute facts always favorable to the side of reason.

I didn't find my friends; the good Lord gave them to me.

They have seen but half the universe who never have been shown the house of pain.

But a compassion for that which is not and cannot be useful and lovely, is degrading and futile.

The greatest gift is a portion of thyself.

A certain awkwardness marks the use of borrowed thoughts; but as soon as we have learned what to do with them, they become our own.