"I thank God, that if I am gifted with little of the spirit which is able to raise mortals to the skies, I have yet none, as I trust, of that other spirit which would drag angels down."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"The gentleman has not seen how to reply to this, otherwise than by supposing me to have advanced the doctrine that a national debt is a national blessing."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"Inconsistencies of opinion, arising from changes of circumstances, are often justifiable."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"There is nothing so powerful as truth,--and often nothing so strange."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"I was born an American; I will live an American; I shall die an American."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"Venerable men! you have come down to us from a former generation. Heaven has bounteously lengthened out your lives, that you might behold this joyous day."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"Mind is the great lever of all things; human thought is the process by which human ends are ultimately answered."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"Liberty exists in proportion to wholesome restraint."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"Although no sculptured marble should rise to their memory, nor engraved stone bear record of their deeds, yet will their remembrance be as lasting as the land they honored."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"Thank God! I--I also--am an American!"

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"Justice, sir, is the great interest of man on earth."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"He smote the rock of the national resources, and abundant streams of revenue gushed forth. He touched the dead corpse of Public Credit, and it sprung upon its feet."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"A sense of duty pursues us ever. It is omnipresent, like the Deity. If we take to ourselves the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, duty performed or duty violated is still with us, for our happiness or our misery. If we say the darkness shall cover us, in the darkness as in the light our obligations are yet with us."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"The Bible is a book of faith, and a book of doctrine, and a book of morals, and a book of religion, of especial revelation from God."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"All hope abandon, ye who enter here."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"No greater grief than to remember days Of joy when misery is at hand."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"The wretched souls of those who lived Without or praise or blame."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"You 'd scarce expect one of my age To speak in public on the stage; And if I chance to fall below Demosthenes or Cicero, Don't view me with a critic's eye, But pass my imperfections by. Large streams from little fountains flow, Tall oaks from little acorns grow."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"Hearts of oak are our ships, Hearts of oak are our men."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"Their cause I plead,--plead it in heart and mind; A fellow-feeling makes one wondrous kind."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"Corrupted freemen are the worst of slaves."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"This scholar, rake, Christian, dupe, gamester, and poet."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"Prologues like compliments are loss of time; 'T is penning bows and making legs in rhyme."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"Here lies James Quinn. Deign, reader, to be taught, Whate'er thy strength of body, force of thought, In Nature's happiest mould however cast, To this complexion thou must come at last."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"Here lies Nolly Goldsmith, for shortness called Noll, Who wrote like an angel, and talk'd like poor Poll."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"Let others hail the rising sun: I bow to that whose course is run."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"Are these the choice dishes the Doctor has sent us? Is this the great poet whose works so content us? This Goldsmith's fine feast, who has written fine books? Heaven sends us good meat, but the Devil sends cooks?"

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"Two hands upon the breast, And labour 's done; Two pale feet crossed in rest, The race is won."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"'T is money makes the man; and he who 's none Is counted neither good nor honourable."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"Thales said there was no difference between life and death. "Why, then," said some one to him, "do not you die?" "Because," said he, "it does make no difference.""

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"The apophthegm "Know thyself" is his."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"That virtue was sufficient of herself for happiness."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"Epimenides was sent by his father into the field to look for a sheep, turned out of the road at mid-day and lay down in a certain cave and fell asleep, and slept there fifty-seven years; and after that, when awake, he went on looking for the sheep, thinking that he had been taking a short nap."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"The chief good is the suspension of the judgment, which tranquillity of mind follows like its shadow."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"Anarcharsis, on learning that the sides of a ship were four fingers thick, said that "the passengers were just that distance from death.""

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"Anaxagoras said to a man who was grieving because he was dying in a foreign land, "The descent to Hades is the same from every place.""

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"There is a written and an unwritten law. The one by which we regulate our constitutions in our cities is the written law; that which arises from custom is the unwritten law."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"Bion used to say that the way to the shades below was easy; he could go there with his eyes shut."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"The question was once put to him, how we ought to behave to our friends; and the answer he gave was, "As we should wish our friends to behave to us.""

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"Antisthenes used to say that envious people were devoured by their own disposition, just as iron is by rust."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"Pythagoras used to say that he had received as a gift from Mercury the perpetual transmigration of his soul, so that it was constantly transmigrating and passing into all sorts of plants or animals."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"Pittacus said that half was more than the whole."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"Apollodorus says, "If any one were to take away from the books of Chrysippus all the passages which he quotes from other authors, his paper would be left empty.""

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"If appearances are deceitful, then they do not deserve any confidence when they assert what appears to them to be true."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"In the time of Pythagoras that proverbial phrase "Ipse dixit" was introduced into ordinary life."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"Plato having defined man to be a two-legged animal without feathers, Diogenes plucked a cock and brought it into the Academy, and said, "This is Plato's man." On which account this addition was made to the definition,--"With broad flat nails.""

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"When asked what learning was the most necessary, he said, "Not to unlearn what you have learned.""

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"One of the sayings of Diogenes was that most men were within a finger's breadth of being mad; for if a man walked with his middle finger pointing out, folks would think him mad, but not so if it were his forefinger."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"Writers differ with respect to the apophthegms of the Seven Sages, attributing the same one to various authors."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain

"They say that the first inclination which an animal has is to protect itself."

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. (Little, Brown, 1905), public domain