“Wherever men have lived, there is a story to be told”

“Generally speaking, the political news, whether domestic or foreign, might be written today for the next ten years with sufficientaccuracy. Most revolutions in society have not power to interest, still less alarm us; but tell me that our rivers are drying up, or the genus pine dying out in the country, and I might attend.”

“A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority.”

“I do not wish to quarrel with any man or nation. I do not wish to split hairs, to make fine distinctions, or set myself up as better than my neighbors. I seek rather, I may say, even an excuse for conforming to the laws of the land. I am but too ready to conform to them. Indeed, I have reason to suspect myself on this head; and each year, as the tax-gatherer comes round, I find myself disposed to review the acts and position of the general and State governments, and the spirit of the people, to discover a pretext for conformity.”

“It is an unfortunate discovery certainly, that of a law which binds us where we did not know before that we were bound.”

“Those who don't feel this love pulling them like a river, those who don't drink dawn like a cup of springwater or take in sunset like a supper, those who don't want to change, let them sleep.”

“Love has come to rule and transform; Stay awake, my heart, stay awake.”

“Rise up nimbly and go on your strange journey to the ocean of meanings.... Leave and don't look away from the sun as you go, in whose light you're sometimes crescent, sometimes full.”