All the territorial possessions of all the political establishments in the earth--including America, of course-- consist of pilferings from other people's wash. No tribe, howsoever insignificant, and no nation, howsoever mighty occupies a foot of land that was not stolen.
People who always feel jolly, no matter where they are or what happens to themwho have the organ of hope preposterously developedwho are endowed with an uncongealable sanguine temperamentwho never feel concerned about the price of cornand who cannot, by any possibility, discover any but the bright side of a pictureare very apt to go to extremes, and exaggerate with 40-horse microscopic power.
There is no such thing as material covetousness. All covetousness is spiritual. ...Any so-called material thing that you want is merely a symbol: you want it not for itself, but because it will content your spirit for the moment.
I think we never become really and genuinely our entire and honest selves until we are dead--and not then until we have been dead years and years. People ought to start dead, and they would be honest so much earlier.
Many of the cemeteries are beautiful, and are kept in perfect order. When one goes from the levee or the business streets [of New Orleans] to it, to a cemetery, he observes to himself that if those people down there would live as neatly while they are alive as they do after they are dead, they would find many advantages in it; and besides, their quarter would be the wonder and admiration of the business world.
I have thought many times since that if poets when they get discouraged would blow their brains out, they could write very much better when they got well.
This is the fairest picture on our planet, the most enchanting to look upon, the most satisfying to the eye and spirit. To see the sun sink down, drowned in his pink and purple and golden floods, and overwhelm Florence with tides of color that make all the sharp lines dim and faint and turn the solid city to a city of dreams, is a sight to stir the coldest nature, and make a sympathetic one drunk with ecstasy.