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.

It is the essence of poetry to spring, like the rainbow daughter of Wonder, from the invisible, to abolish the past, and refuse all history.

What school, college, or lecture bring men depends on what men bring to carry it home in.

Light is the first of painters. There is no object so foul that intense light will not make it beautiful.

The wise know that foolish legislation is a rope of sand, which perishes in the twisting.

Though I am weak, yet God, when prayed, Cannot withhold his conquering aid.

There is no den in the wide world to hide a rogue. Commit a crime, and the earth is made of glass. Commit a crime, and it seems as if a coat of snow fell on the ground, such as reveals in the woods the track of every partridge and fox and squirrel and mole.