"The next Augustan age will dawn on the other side of the Atlantic. There will, perhaps, be a Thucydides at Boston, a …"

"But why should the Americans write books, when a six weeks passage brings them, in their own tongue, our sense, scien…"

"The character of the American literature is, generally speaking, pretty justly appreciated in Europe. The immense exh…"

"It does not follow because many books are written by persons born in America that there exists an American literature…"

"It would seem that in our great unendowed, unfurnished, unentertained and unentertaining continent, where we all sit …"

"I will put in my poems that with you is heroism upon land and sea, And I will report all heroism from an American poi…"

"I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,... The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at wor…"

"To be, or not to be; that is the bare bodkin."

"One of his hobbies was to wait for the American Shakespeare — a hobby more patient than angling."

"The Muse, disgusted at an age and clime, Barren of every glorious theme, In distant lands now waits a better time, Pr…"