Dialect tempered with slang is an admirable medium of communication between persons who have nothing to say and persons who would not care for anything properly said.

Decoration Day is the most beautiful of our national holidays.... The grim cannon have turned into palm branches, and the shell and shrapnel into peach blossoms.

October turned my maple's leaves to gold; The most are gone now; here and there one lingers: Soon these will slip from the twigs' weak hold, Like coins between a dying miser's fingers.

The possession of unlimited power will make a despot of almost any man. There is a possible Nero in the gentlest human creature that walks.

To keep the heart unwrinkled, to be hopeful, kindly, cheerful, reverent that is to triumph over old age.

O Liberty...! is it well To leave the gates unguarded?

I like to have a thing suggested rather than told in full. When every detail is given, the mind rests satisfied, and the imagination loses the desire to use its own wings.