Sit down to write what you have thought, and not to think what you shall write.

It is not the greatness of a man's means that makes him independent, so much as the smallness of his wants.

Grammar, perfectly understood, enables us not only to express our meaning fully and clearly, but so to express it as to enable us to defy the ingenuity of man to give to our words any other meaning than that which we ourselves intend them to express.

Poverty is, except where there is an actual want of food and raiment, a thing much more imaginary than real. The shame of poverty--the shame of being thought poor--it is a great and fatal weakness, though arising in this country, from the fashion of the times themselves.

He who writes badly thinks badly

Another great evil arising from this desire to be thought rich; or rather, from the desire not to be thought poor, is the destructive thing which has been honored by the name of "speculation"; but which ought to be called Gambling.

Dancing is at once rational & healthful: it gives animal spirits; it is the natural amusement of young people, & such it has been from the days of Moses.