A man in pursuit of greatness feels no little wants.

The less a man thinks or knows about his virtues, the better we like him.

Action is with the scholar subordinate, but it is essential. Without it, he is not yet man. Without it, thought can never ripen into truth.

The highest virtue is always against the law.

If the stars should appear but one night every thousand years how man would marvel and stare.

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.

Among provocative, the next best thing to good preaching is bad preaching.