Had I but written as many odes in praise of Muhammad and Ali as I have composed for King Mahmud, they would have showered a hundred blessings on me.

A dilettantism in nature is barren and unworthy. A fop of fields is no better than his brother on Broadway.

Under the dominion of an idea, which possesses the minds of multitudes, as civil freedom, or the religious sentiment, the power ofpersons are no longer subjects of calculation. A nation of men unanimously bent on freedom, or conquest, can easily confound the arithmetic of statists, and achieve extravagant actions, out of all proportion to their means; as, the Greeks, the Saracens, the Swiss, the Americans, and the French have done.

When there is no vision, people perish.

Let us draw a lesson from nature, which always works by short ways. When the fruit is ripe, it falls.

The babe in arms is a channel through which the energies we call fate, love, and reason visibly stream.

Solitude is impractical, and society fatal. We must keep our head in the one and our hands in the other. The conditions are met, if we keep our independence, yet do not lose our sympathy.