America is another name for opportunity. Our whole history appears like a last effort of divine providence on behalf of the human race.
We take care of our health; we lay up money; we make our roof tight, and our clothing sufficient; but who provides wisely that he shall not be wanting in the best property of all, -friends?
In every man there is something wherein I may learn of him, and in that I am his pupil.
What you are comes to you.
In the matter of religion, people eagerly fasten their eyes on the difference between their own creed and yours; whilst the charm of the study is in finding the agreements and identities in all the religions of humanity.
Talent alone cannot make a writer. There must be a man behind the book.
Fame is proof that the people are gullible.
What would be the use of immortality to a person who cannot use well a half an hour?
The essence of greatness is the perception that virtue is enough.
To different minds, the same world is a hell, and a heaven.
A little praise goes a great ways.
Men talk as if victory were something fortunate. Work is victory.
A good intention clothes itself with power.
The less government we have the better.
Our distrust is very expensive.
Every great man is unique.
Coffee is good for talent, but genius wants prayer.
The measure of a master is his success in bringing all men around to his opinion twenty years later.
Yet America is a poem in our eyes; its ample geography dazzles the imagination, and it will not wait long for metres.
A painter told me that nobody could draw a tree without in some sort becoming a tree; or draw a child by studying the outlines of its form merely but by watching for a time his motions and plays, the painter enters into his nature and can then draw him at every attitude...