Water is the grand epic of creation; and there is not a human soul but feels the influence of its majesty, its power, or its beauty.

Americans have two ardent passions; the love of liberty, and love of distinction.

Readers soon tire of prefaces, and skip them, and so the labor of writing them is lost.

There are few sensations more painful, than, in the midst of deep grief, to know that the season which we have always associated with mirth and rejoicing is at hand.

There is hardly a more heart-thrilling pleasure enjoyed by mortals, than that which parents feel when seeing their child first being able to 'catch knowledge of objects.

What a ready passport wealth gives its possessor to the good opinions of this world!

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.