“Our youth and manhood are due to our country, but our declining years are due to ourselves.”

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.

The enjoyments of this life are not equal to its evils.

In comparing various authors with one another, I have discovered that some of the gravest and latest writers have transcribed, word for word, from former works, without making acknowledgment.

A decline in the national housing price level would need to be substantial to trigger a significant rise in foreclosures, because the vast majority of homeowners have built up substantial equity in their homes despite large mortgage.

My life is a stairway to heaven, not a ‘decline into decrepitude.

People lucky enough to live in the vicinity of an industrial hog farm are, with each breath, made keenly aware of the cause of their declining property values.

They’re trying to pay for health care and send their kids to college, they’re worried about declining home values, they’re scared for a loved one they have serving in Iraq.

Since the decline of record companies and music sales, I’ve always played live.

As a result of the awareness and consciousness of decline, an awareness and consciousness of a national ethnicity or an Islamic identity also came into being.

The principal reason for the decline and fall of peoples is ignorance.

What is at a peak is certain to decline. He who shows his hand will surely be defeated. He who can prevail in battle by taking advantage of his enemy’s doubts is invincible.