Journalists From The United States

"Wherever God's word is circulated, it stirs the hearts of the people, it prepares for public morals. Circulate that word, and you find the tone of morals immediately changed. It is God speaking to man."

"Nothing lives in literature but that which has the vitality of creative art; and it would be safe advice to the young to read nothing but what is old."

"The contemplation of beauty in nature, in art, in literature, in human character, diffuses through our being a soothing and subtle joy, by which the heart's anxious and aching cares are softly smiled away."

"Knowledge, like religion, must be "experienced" in order to be known."

"Cheerfulness, in most cheerful people, is the rich and satisfying result of strenuous discipline."

"We all originally came from the woods; it is hard to eradicate from any of us the old taste for the tattoo and the war-paint; and the moment money gets into our pockets, it somehow or other breaks out in ornaments on our persons, without always giving refinement to our manners."

"Men educate each other in reason by contact or collision, and keep each other sane by the very conflict of their separate hobbies. Society as a whole is the deadly enemy of the particular crotchet of each, and solitude is almost the only condition in which the acorn of conceit can grow to the oak of perfect self-delusion."

"Seneca, with two millions out at usury, can afford to chant the praises of poverty; but for our part, we prefer the fine extravagance of that philosopher, who declared "that no man was as rich as all men ought to be.""

"God is glorified, not by our groans, but our thanksgivings; and all good thought and good action claim a natural alliance with good cheer."

"A clear objective perception of facts, and the laws and principles which inhere in facts, is a moral, no less than a mental quality. It implies a purification of the character from egotism and pride of opinion, a rare union of humility of feeling with audacity of thought, and, above all, the triumph of a sincere love of objective truth over the desire to exalt a subjective self."

"In the life of the individual, as in the more comprehensive life of the state, pretension is nothing and power is everything."

"The eye observes only what the mind, the heart, and the imagination are gifted to see; and sight must be reinforced by insight before souls can be discerned as well as manners, ideas as well as objects, realities and relations as well as appearances and accidental connections."

"Grit is in the grain of character. It may generally be described as heroism materialized,—spirit and will thrust into heart, brain, and backbone, so as to form part of the physical substance of the man."

"The strife of politics tends to unsettle the calmest understanding, and ulcerate the most benevolent heart. There are no absurdities or bigotries too gross for parties to create or adopt under the stimulus of political passions. The path of all great statesmen lies between two opposing insanities."

"Character is the spiritual body of the person, and represents the individualization of vital experience, the conversion of unconscious things into self-conscious men."

"In the strife of parties and principles, backbone without brains will carry it against brains without backbone. A politician weakly and amiably in the right is no match for a politician tenaciously and pugnaciously in the wrong."

"Heroism is no extempore work of transient impulse,—a rocket rushing fretfully up to disturb the darkness by which, after a moment's insulting radiance, it is ruthlessly swallowed up,—but a steady fire, which darts forth tongues of flame."

"Talent is full of thoughts; Genius, of thought: one has definite acquisitions; the other, indefinite power."

"No education deserves the name, unless it develops thought,—unless it pierces down to the mysterious spiritual principle of mind, and starts that into activity and growth."

"Talent jogs to conclusions to which Genius takes giant leaps."

"The universal line of distinction between the strong and the weak is, that one persists; the other hesitates, falters, trifles, and at last collapses or "caves in.""

"Even in social life, it is persistency which attracts confidence more than talents and accomplishments."

"A large proportion of human beings live not so much in themselves as in what they desire to be. They create what is called an ideal character, in an ideal form, whose perfections compensate in some degree for the imperfections of their own."

"Talent is a cistern; Genius, a fountain."

"The wise men of old have sent most of their morality down the stream of time in the light skiff of apothegm or epigram."

"Humor implies a sure conception of the beautiful, the majestic, and the true, by whose light it surveys and shapes their opposites. It is an humane influence, softening with mirth the ragged inequalities of existence, promoting tolerant views of life, bridging over the spaces which separate the lofty from the lowly, the great from the humble."

"The invention of printing added a new element of power to the race. From that hour, in a most especial sense, the brain and not the arm, the thinker and not the soldier, books and not kings, were to rule the world; and weapons, forged in the mind, keen-edged and brighter than the sunbeam, were to supplant the sword and the battle-axe. […] Books,—lighthouses erected in the great sea of time,—books, the precious depositories of the thoughts and creations of genius,—books, by whose sorcery times past become time present, and the whole pageantry of the world's history moves in solemn procession before our eyes;—these were to visit the firesides of the humble, and lavish the treasures of the intellect upon the poor. Could we have Plato, and Shakespeare, and Milton, in our dwellings, in the full vigor of their imaginations, in the full freshness of their hearts, few scholars would be affluent enough to afford them physical support; but the living images of their minds are within the eyes of all. From their pages their mighty souls look out upon us in all their grandeur and beauty, undimmed by the faults and follies of earthly existence, consecrated by time."

"Irony is an insult conveyed in the form of a compliment."

"Nothing is rarer than the use of a word in its exact meaning."

"The familiar writer is apt to be his own satirist. Out of his own mouth is he judged."

"Everybody knows that fanaticism is religion caricatured; bears, indeed, about the same relation to it that a monkey bears to a man; yet, with many, contempt of fanaticism is received as a sure sign of hostility to religion."

"Sin, every day, takes out a patent for some new invention'"

"But man, being, as I have said, essentially an active being, he must find in activity his joy, as well as his duty and glory. And labor, like everything else that is good, is its own exceeding great reward."

"The purity of the critical ermine, like that of the judicial, is often soiled by contact with politics."

"Felicity, not fluency, of language is a merit."

"A Thought embodied and embrained in fit words, walks the earth a living being."

"An epigram often flashes light into regions where reason shines but dimly."

"Genius is not a single power, but a combination of great powers. It reasons, but it is not reasoning; it judges, but it is not judgment; it imagines, but it is not imagination; it feels deeply and fiercely, but it is not passion. It is neither, because it is all. It is another name for the perfection of human nature, for Genius is not a fact but an ideal. It is nothing less than the possession of all the powers and impulses of humanity, in their greatest possible strength and most harmonious combination; and the genius of any particular man is great in proportion as he approaches this ideal of universal genius."

"Closer to showtime, the jovial crowd now arrives in droves. Laughing. Smiling. Until they hear the melodic sounds of “This Land Is Fagland,” being sung by small children. With the most vigor, even the tiniest join in, big smiles, swaying their heads like it were the Barney the Dinosaur song. The chubby, red-haired girl actually jumps while singing—she's that happy."

"I'm stunned. Is this a trick to steal my shoes? Thirty-year carnie vet Wayne-o is offering me, me, a corn dog. I think I've officially been accepted as a fellow carny! We all want acceptance, and maybe that's the allure of the carny life—no matter how big of a freak you are in the outside world, if you work hard enough, you can be accepted as a carny."

"Looking at the time, I can't believe the irony. Expecting a huge reaction, I announce, “Hey everyone, it's 4:20!” No one cares. No one looks up. On a pot farm, it's always 4:20."

"Hell is other people's babies. That's the lesson I learned when I ventured to the Eighth Annual America's Most Beautiful Baby Contest in Phoenix, Arizona. Outside, it's hot enough to fry baby food. But inside the bliss of a beautiful air-conditioned shopping mall, one baby will be judged far more beautiful than all the others, and displayed on stage like a little trained monkey. The grand prize awarded to the winning baby: a brand new car!"

"Adjusting my thick glasses and dropping my half-Chinese Austin Powers accent, I futilely try to defend myself (noting there's nothing worse in the world than being screamed at by a bunch of female celebrity impersonators)."

"The love of man and woman is as fire To warm, to light, but surely to consume And self-consuming die… But comrade-love is as a welding blast Of candid flame and ardent temperature: Glowing more fervent, it doth bind more fast; And melting both but makes the union sure. The dross alone is burnt—till at the last The steel, if cold, is one and strong and pure."

"I 'd rather be handsome than homely; I 'd rather be youthful than old; If I can't have a bushel of silver I'll do with a barrel of gold."

"A brave endeavor To do thy duty, whate'er its worth, Is better than life with love forever And love is the sweetest thing on earth."

"All loved Art in a seemly way With an earnest soul and a capital A."

"The net of law is spread so wide, No sinner from its sweep may hide. Its meshes are so fine and strong They take in every child of wrong. O wondrous web of mystery ! Big fish alone escape from thee !"

"One should really use the camera as though tomorrow you'd be stricken blind. To live a visual life is an enormous undertaking, practically unattainable. I have only touched it, just touched it."

"We live not only inside a body but within a story as well, and our story resides in the land as sure as the vision of Dorothea Lange's desperate, running horse."