"Wut's words to them whose faith an' truth On war's red techstone rang true metal; Who ventered life an' love an' youth For the gret prize o' death in battle?"

"Earth's biggest country 's gut her soul, An' risen up earth's greatest nation."

"In a society like ours, where every man may transmute his private thought into history and destiny by dropping it into the ballot-box, a peculiar responsibility rests upon the individual. Nothing can absolve us from doing our best to look at all public questions as citizens, and therefore in some sort as administrators and rulers. For, though during its term of office the government be practically as independent of the popular will as that of Russia, yet every fourth year the people are called upon to pronounce upon the conduct of their affairs."

"Our Pilgrim stock wuz pithed with hardihood."

"Whatever be the effect of slavery upon the States where it exists, there can be no doubt that its moral influence upon the North has been most disastrous. It has compelled our politicians into that first fatal compromise with their moral instincts and hereditary principles which makes all consequent ones easy; it has accustomed us to makeshifts instead of statesmanship, to subterfuge instead of policy, to party-platforms for opinions, and to a defiance of the public sentiment of the civilized world for patriotism."

"It is curious how tyrannical the habit of reading is, and what shifts we make to escape thinking. There is no bore we dread being left alone with so much as our own minds."

"Soft-heartedness, in times like these, Shows sof'ness in the upper story."

"Ef you want peace, the thing you've gut tu du Is jes' to show you're up to fightin', tu."

"Bad work follers ye ez long's ye live."

"Folks never understand the folks they hate."

"No, never say nothin' without you're compelled tu, An' then don't say nothin' thet you can be held tu."

"My gran'ther's rule was safer 'n 'tis to crow: Don't never prophesy — onless ye know."

"It's 'most enough to make a deacon swear."

"The surest plan to make a Man Is, think him so."

"The one thet fust gits mad 's 'most ollers wrong."

"To say why gals acts so or so, Or don't, 'ould be persumin'; Mebby to mean yes an' say no Comes nateral to women."

"He stood a spell on one foot fust Then stood a spell on t' other, An' on which one he felt the wust He could n't ha' told ye nuther."

"His heart kep' goin' pity-pat, But hern went pity-Zekle."

"All kin' o' smily round the lips, An' teary round the lashes."

"Like streams that keep a summer mind Snow-hid in Jenooary."

"Our papers don't purtend to print on'y wut Guv'ment choose, An' thet insures us all to git the very best o' noose."

"Our slender life runs rippling by, and glides Into the silent hollow of the past; What is there that abides To make the next age better for the last?"

"She thought no v'ice hed sech a swing Ez hisn in the choir; My! when he made Ole Hunderd ring She knowed the Lord was nigher."

"Of my merit On thet pint you yourself may jedge; All is, I never drink no sperit, Nor I haint never signed no pledge."

"Ez to my princerples, I glory In hevin' nothin' o' the sort."

"It ain't by princerples nor men My preudunt course is steadied— I scent wich pays the best, an' then Go into it baldheaded."

"God makes sech nights, all white an' still, Fur'z you can look or listen, Moonshine an' snow on field an' hill, All silence an' all glisten."

"A marciful Providunce fashioned us holler O' purpose thet we might our principles swaller."

"I du believe with all my soul In the gret Press's freedom, To pint the people to the goal An' in the traces lead 'em."

"Zekle crep' up quite unbeknown An' peeked in thru' the winder, An there sot Huldy all alone, 'ith no one nigh to hender."

"I don't believe in princerple, But oh I du in interest."

"This goin' ware glory waits ye haint one agreeable feetur."

"Gineral C. is a dreffle smart man; He’s ben on all sides thet give places or pelf; But consistency still wuz a part of his plan,— He’s ben true to one party, an’ thet is himself."

"’Tain’t by turnin’ out to hack folks You’re agoin’ to git your right, Nor by lookin’ down on black folks Coz you’re put upon by white; Slavery ain’t o’ nary color, ’Tain’t the hide thet makes it wus, All it keers fer in a feller ’S jest to make him fill its pus."

"We kind o' thought Christ went agin war an' pillage."

"Ef you take a sword an’ dror it, An’ go stick a feller thru, Guv’mint ain’t to answer for it, God’ll send the bill to you."

"But John P. Robinson, he Sez they did n't know everythin' down in Judee."

"The very room, coz she was in, Seemed warm from floor to ceilin'"

"Laborin' man an' laborin' woman Hev one glory an' one shame; Ev'y thin' thet's done inhuman Injers all on 'em the same."

"There comes Poe, with his raven, like Barnaby Rudge, Three-fifths of him genius and two-fifths sheer fudge."

"For though he builds glorious temples, 'tis odd He leaves never a doorway to get in a god."

"And I honor the man who is willing to sink Half his present repute for the freedom to think, And, when he has thought, be his cause strong or weak, Will risk t'other half for the freedom to speak, Caring naught for what vengeance the mob has in store, Let that mob be the upper ten thousand or lower."

"Nature fits all her children with something to do, He who would write and can't write, can surely review."

"A reading-machine, always wound up and going, He mastered whatever was not worth the knowing."

"There comes Emerson first, whose rich words, every one, Are like gold nails in temples to hang trophies on; Whose prose is grand verse while his verse the Lord knows Is some of it pr— No, 't is not even prose!"

"Ez fer war, I call it murder— There you hev it plain an' flat; I don't want to go no furder Than my Testyment fer that."

"In creating, the only hard thing's to begin; A grass-blade's no easier to make than an oak, If you've once found the way you've achieved the grand stroke."

"And what is so rare as a day in June? Then, if ever, come perfect days; Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune, And over it softly her warm ear lays: Whether we look, or whether we listen, We hear life murmur, or see it glisten; Every clod feels a stir of might, An instinct within it that reaches and towers, And, grasping blindly above it for light, Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers."

"Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it; We are happy now because God wills it."