Manners are the happy ways of doing things; each once a stroke of genius or of love, now repeated and hardened into usage.

We rail at trade, but the historian of the world will see that it was the principle of liberty; that it settled America, and destroyed feudalism, and made peace and keeps peace; that it will abolish slavery.

But I cannot recite, even thus rudely, laws of the intellect, without remembering that lofty and sequestered class of men who have been its prophets and oracles, the high-priesthood of the pure reason, the Trismegisti, the expounders of the principles of thought from age to age.

Every thing admonishes us how needlessly long life is.

I ought to go upright and vital, and speak the rude truth in all ways.

The counting-room maxims liberally expounded are laws of the Universe. The merchant's economy is a coarse symbol of the soul's economy. It is, to spend for power, and not for pleasure.

There is no one who does not exaggerate. In conversation, men are encumbered with personality, and talk too much.