the engrossing pursuit of Americans is wealth.

... rights are liable to be perverted to wrongs when we are incapable of rightly exercising them.

Democracies have been, and governments called, free; but the spirit of independence and the consciousness of unalienable rights, were never before transfused into the minds of a whole people....The feeling of equality which they proudly cherish does not proceed from an ignorance of their station, but from the knowledge of their rights; and it is this knowledge which will render it so exceedingly difficult for any tyrant ever to triumph over the liberties of our country.

The most welcome guest in society will ever be the one to whose mind everything is a suggestion, and whose words suggest something to everybody.

It requires but a few threads of hope, for the heart that is skilled in the secret, to weave a web of happiness.

self-control, in every station and to every individual, is indispensable, if people would retain that equanimity of mind, which, depending on self-respect, is the essential of contentment and happiness.

There is no influence so powerful as that of the mother, but next in rank in efficacy is that of the schoolmaster.