Cities degrade us by magnifying trifles.

It is easy to see that what is best written or done by genius in the world, was no man's work but came by wide social labor, whena thousand wrought like one, sharing the same impulse.

Man is the end of nature; nothing so easily organizes itself in every part of the universe as he; no moss, no lichen is so easilyborn; and he takes along with him and puts out from himself the whole apparatus of society and condition extempore, as an army encamps in a desert, and where all was just now blowing sand, creates a white city in an hour, a government, a market, a place for feasting, for conversation, and for love.

If you take in a lie, you must take in all that belongs to it.

In politics and in trade, bruisers and pirates are of better promise than talkers and clerks.

Let us be silent — so we may hear the whisper of the gods.

Give me truths for I am weary of the surfaces.