"Forc'd from their homes, a melancholy train, To traverse climes beyond the western main; Where wild Oswego spreads her swamps around, And Niagara stuns with thundering sound."

"Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law."

"For just experience tells; in every soil, That those that think must govern those that toil."

"The land of scholars and the nurse of arms."

"Pride in their port, defiance in their eye, I see the lords of humankind pass by."

"To men of other minds my fancy flies, Embosomed in the deep where Holland lies. Methinks her patient sons before me stand, Where the broad ocean leans against the land."

"They please, are pleased, they give to get esteem, Till, seeming blest, they grow to what they seem."

"Alike all ages. Dames of ancient days Have led their children through the mirthful maze, And the gay grandsire, skill'd in gestic lore, Has frisk'd beneath the burden of threescore."

"Unknown those powers that raise the soul to flame, Catch every nerve, and vibrate through the frame. Their level life is but a mouldering fire, Unquenched by want, unfanned by strong desire."

"So the loud torrent and the whirlwind's roar But bind him to his native mountains more."

"Cheerful at morn, he wakes from short repose, Breasts the keen air, and carols as he goes."

"But winter lingering chills the lap of May."

"By sports like these are all their cares beguil'd; The sports of children satisfy the child."

"The canvas glow'd beyond ev'n Nature warm, The pregnant quarry teem'd with human form."

"Man seems the only growth that dwindles here."

"Where wealth and freedom reign contentment fails, And honor sinks where commerce long prevails."

"Such is the patriot's boast, where'er we roam, His first, best country ever is, at home."

"Creation's heir, the world, the world is mine!"

"These little things are great to little man."

"Some fleeting good, that mocks me with the view."

"And learn the luxury of doing good."

"Where'er I roam, whatever realms I see, My heart untraveled fondly turns to thee; Still to my brother turns with ceaseless pain, And drags at each remove a lengthening chain."

"Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow, Or by the lazy Scheldt, or wandering Po."

"Hope, like the gleaming taper's light, Adorns and cheers our way; And still, as darker grows the night, Emits a brighter ray."

"To the last moment of his breath On hope the wretch relies; And e'en the pang preceding death Bids expectation rise."

"O Memory! thou fond deceiver."

"That strain once more; it bids remembrance rise."

"As aromatic plants bestow No spicy fragrance while they grow; But crush'd or trodden to the ground, Diffuse their balmy sweets around."

"The king himself has followed her When she has walk'd before."

"Good people all, with one acord, Lament for Madame Blaize, Who never wanted a good word — From those who spoke her praise."

"As writers become more numerous, it is natural for readers to become more indolent."

"The true use of speech is not so much to express our wants as to conceal them."

"One writer, for instance, excels at a plan or a title page, another works away at the body of the book, and a third is a dab at an index."

"For he who fights and runs away May live to fight another day; But he who is in battle slain Can never rise and fight again."

"You may all go to pot."

"[To Mr. Johnson] If you were to make little fishes talk, they would talk like whales."

"There is no arguing with Johnson: for if his pistol misses fire, he knocks you down with the butt end of it."

"Such dainties to them, their health it might hurt; It's like sending them ruffles, when wanting a shirt."

"The better sort here pretend to the utmost compassion for animals of every kind. To hear them speak, a stranger would be apt to imagine they could hardly hurt the gnat that stung them: they seem so tender and so full of pity, that one would take them for the harmless friends of the whole creation; the protectors of the meanest insect or reptile that was privileged with existence. And yet, would you believe it? I have seen the very men who have thus boasted of their tenderness, at the same time devouring the flesh of six different animals toasted up in a fricassee. Strange contrariety of conduct! they pity and they eat the objects of their compassion."

"Men may be very learned, and yet very miserable; it is easy to be a deep geometrician, or a sublime astronomer, but very difficult to be a good man. I esteem, therefore, the traveller who instructs the heart, but despise him who only indulges the imagination. A man who leaves home to mend himself and others, is a philosopher; but he who goes from country to country, guided by the blind impulse of curiosity, is only a vagabond."

"Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall."

"Use your health, even to the point of wearing it out. That is what it is for. Spend all you have before you die; and do not outlive yourself."

"In fact, the real problem with the thesis of A Genealogy of Morals is that the noble and the aristocrat are just as likely to be stupid as the plebeian. I had noted in my teens that major writers are usually those who have had to struggle against the odds -- to "pull their cart out of the mud," as I put it -- while writers who have had an easy start in life are usually second rate -- or at least, not quite first-rate. Dickens, Balzac, Dostoevsky, Shaw, H. G. Wells, are examples of the first kind; in the twentieth century, John Galsworthy, Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh, and Samuel Beckett are examples of the second kind. They are far from being mediocre writers; yet they tend to be tinged with a certain pessimism that arises from never having achieved a certain resistance against problems."

"Uncle Wells was as magnificent an uncle as one could hope to have. So, too, was Uncle Shaw. He brought his mind for the children to look at, his marvellous shining mind. Too thin a mind, Philistines would object; but the very finest French watches are as thin as a couple of halfcrowns and yet keep better time than the grosser article. He did for his age what Voltaire and Gibbon did for theirs: he popularized the use of the intellectual processes among the politically effective class. And he did it with such style."

"The worst element in his mental make-up is a queer readiness to succumb to the poses of excessive virility. His soul goes down before successful force. He exalted the maker of enormous guns in Man and Superman; he has rejoiced in the worst claptrap of the Napoleonic legend; now he is striking attitudes of adoration towards the poor, vain, doomed biped who is making Rome horrible and ridiculous to all the world. When it comes to the torture of intelligent men, to vile outrages on old women, to the strangulation of all sane criticism and an orgy of claptrap more dreadful than its attendant cruelties, this vituperative anti-vivisectionist becomes an applauding spectator."

"His argument seems to be that either the Haves or the Have-Nots must seize power and compel all to come under the Fascist or the Communist plough. It is a crude and flippant attempt at reconstruction, bred of conceit, impatience and ignorance. ... [I]t reinforces the Italian tyranny. It is only fair to add that this naïve faith in a Superman before whose energy and genius all must bow down is not a new feature in the Shaw mentality. What is new and deplorable is the absence of any kind of sympathetic appreciation of the agony that the best and wisest Italians are today going through; any appreciation of the mental degradation as implied in the suppression of all liberty of thought and speech."

"Shaw is a pleasant man, simple, direct, sincere, animated; but self-possessed, sane, and evenly poised, acute, engaging, companionable, and quite destitute of affectation. I liked him."

"I found many men to whom I felt deeply grateful — especially Guy de Maupassant, Jack London, and H. L. Mencken — but the first man to whom I felt definitely related was George Bernard Shaw. This is a presumptuous or fatuous thing to mention, perhaps, but even so it must be mentioned. ... I myself, as a person, have been influenced by many writers and many things, and my writing has felt the impact of the writing of many writers, some relatively unknown and unimportant, some downright bad. But probably the greatest influence of them all when an influence is most effective — when the man being influenced is nowhere near being solid in his own right — has been the influence of the great tall man with the white beard, the lively eyes, the swift wit and the impish chuckle. ... I have been fascinated by it all, grateful for it all, grateful for the sheer majesty of the existence of ideas, stories, fables, and paper and ink and print and books to hold them all together for a man to take aside and examine alone. But the man I liked most and the man who seemed to remind me of myself — of what I really was and would surely become — was George Bernard Shaw."