a lively and lasting sense of filial duty is more effectually impressed on the mind of a son or daughter by reading King Lear, than by all the dry volumes of ethics and divinity that ever were written.
Heliotrope.to be sowed in the spring.a delicious flower, but I suspect it must be planted in boxes & kept in the house in the winter. the smell rewards the care.
be good my dear, as I have always found you never be angry with any body, nor speak harm of them, try to let every body’s faults be forgotten, as you would wish yours to be, take more pleasure in giving what is best to another than in having it yourself, & then all the world will love you ...
I am not afraid to warrant to you any degree of success and consideration you may desire, if you qualify yourself by perseverance in study, and by an invariable determination to do, under all circumstances what reason & rigorous right shall dictate, keeping under absolute subjection all the...
the circle of our nearest connections is the only one in which a faithful and lasting affection can be found, one which will adhere to us under all changes & chances. it is therefore the only soil on which it is worthwhile to bestow much culture.
a very coarse & uninformed carpenter is making mine, who never heard of a dome before. it is the only way of framing a dome so as to give it’s hollow to the height of the room.
it would be a great satisfaction to me ... to have the enjoiment of family society for a few days undisturbed. nothing can repay me the loss of that society, the only one founded in affection and bosom confidence ... it is in the love of one’s family only that heartfelt happiness is known. I feel...
1. never put off to tomorrow what you can do to-day. 2. never trouble another with what you can do yourself 3. never spend your money before you have it 4. never buy a thing you do not want, because it is cheap, it will be dear to you. 5. take care of your cents: Dollars will take care of...
in a government like ours it is the duty of the Chief-magistrate, in order to enable himself to do all the good which his station requires, to endeavor, by all honorable means, to unite in himself the confidence of the whole people. this alone, in any case where the energy of the nation is...
The question you propose, Whether circumstances do not sometimes occur which make it a duty in officers of high trust to assume authorities beyond the law, is easy of solution in principle, but sometimes embarrasing in practice. a strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the high...
indeed it seems to me that in proportion as Commercial avarice & corruption advance on us from the North and East, the principles of free government are to retire to the agricultural states of the South & West, as their last asylum & bulwark. with honesty & self-government for...
houshold manufacture is taking deep root with us. I have a carding machine, two spinning machines, & looms with the flying shuttle in full operation for clothing my own family; and I verily believe...
our government has not, as yet, begun to act on the rule of loans & taxation going hand in hand. had any loan taken place in my time, I should have strongly urged a redeeming tax. for the loan which has been made since the last session of Congress, we should now set the example of...
one of the misfortunes of living too long is the loss of all one’s early friends and affections. when I review the ground over which I have passed since my youth, I see it strewed like a field of battle with the bodies of deceased friends. I stand like a solitary tree in a field, it’s trunk...