“Accustom yourself to master and overcome things of difficulty; for if you observe, the left hand for want of practice is insignificant, and not adapted to general business; yet it holds the bridle better than the right, from constant use.”

Let not things, because they are common, enjoy for that the less share of our consideration.

To laugh, if but for an instant only, has never been granted to man before the fortieth day from his birth, and then it is looked upon as a miracle of precocity.

Grief has limits, whereas apprehension has none. For we grieve only for what we know has happened, but we fear all that possibly may happen.

Why do we believe that in all matters the odd numbers are more powerful?

The agricultural population produces the bravest men, the most valiant soldiers,46 and a class of citizens the least given of all to evil designs.

The brain is the highest of the organs in position, and it is protected by the vault of the head; it has no flesh or blood or refuse. It is the citadel of sense-perception.

It is a maxim universally agreed upon in agriculture, that nothing must be done too late; and again, that everything must be done at its proper season; while there is a third precept which reminds us that opportunities lost can never be regained.

In the literary as well as military world, most powerful abilities will often be found concealed under a rustic garb.

When collapse is imminent, the little rodents flee.

Nothing is so unequal as equality.

The great business of man is to improve his mind, and govern his manners; all other projects and pursuits, whether in our power to compass or not, are only amusements.

The most valuable discoveries have found their origin in the most trivial accidents.

How many things… are looked upon as quite impossible until they have been actually effected?

The perverted ingenuity of man has given to water the power of intoxicating where wine is not procured. Western nations intoxicate themselves by moistened grain.

Nature makes us buy her presents at the price of so many sufferings that it is doubtful whether she deserves most the name of parent or stepmother.

Hope is the pillar that holds up the world. Hope is the dream of a waking man.

Cry for the broken tribe, for the law and the custom that is gone. Aye, and cry aloud for the man who is dead, for the woman and children bereaved.

To bribe a farmer not to plant 38 acres with corn … seven weeks of salary for a Customs man assigned to save us from the terror of high-quality, low priced foreign TV sets, or the subsidy on 6,000 bushels of wheat to prop up the Soviet regime.

The despotism of custom is everywhere the standing hindrance to human advancement.

He who does anything because it is the custom, makes no choice.

The National Targeting Center in Virginia run by Customs and Border Protection checks the background of every traveler who seeks to enter the country.

The perpetual obstacle to human advancement is custom.

Whatever may be the laws and customs of a country, women always give the tone to morals.

The universality of a custom is pledge of its worth.