The soil out of which such men as he are made is good to be born on, good to live on, good to die for and to be buried in.

Before Man made us citizens, great Nature made us men.

How little inventiveness there is in man, Grave copier of copies.

The course of a great statesman resembles that of navigable rivers, avoiding immovable obstacles with noble bends of concession, seeking the broad levels of opinion on which men soonest settle and longest dwell, following and marking the almost imperceptible slopes of national tendency, yet always aiming at direct advances, always recruited from sources nearer heaven, and sometimes bursting open paths of progress and fruitful human commerce through what seem the eternal barriers of both.

The better part of every man's education is that which he gives himself.

I willingly confess to so great a partiality for trees as tempts me to respect a man in exact proportion to his respect for them.

The only conclusive evidence of a man's sincerity is that he gives himself for a principle. Words, money, all things else, are comparatively easy to give away; but when a man makes a gift of his daily life and practice, it is plain that the truth, whatever it may be, has taken possession of him.

Nature, they say, doth dote, And cannot make a man Save on some worn-out plan, Repeating us by rote.

Nature, they say, doth dote, And cannot make a man Save on some worn-out plan Repeating us by rote: For him her Old World moulds aside she threw And, choosing sweet clay from the breast Of the unexhausted West, With stuff untainted shaped a hero new.