We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aid, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn.

To be awake is to be alive.

There are moments when all anxiety and stated toil are becalmed in the infinite leisure and repose of nature.

Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.

We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate... We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the old world some weeks nearer to the new; but perchance the first news that will leak through into the broad flapping American ear will be that Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough.

Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.