The voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tacks. See the line from a sufficient distance and it straightens itself to the average tendency.

The greater speed and success that distinguish the planting of the human race in this country, over all other plantations in history, owe themselves mainly to the new subdivisions of the State into small corporations of land and power.

Friendship should be surrounded with ceremonies and respects, and not crushed into corners.

Style is only the frame to hold your thoughts. It is like the sash of a window; if heavy, it will obscure the light.

The ornaments of our homes are the friends that visit it

The virtues of society are vices of the saint. The terror of reform is the discovery that we must cast away our virtues, or what we have always esteemed such, into the same pit that has consumed our grosser vices.

God will not make himself manifest to cowards