Regrets are idle; yet history is one long regret. Everything might…

To own a bit of ground, to scratch it with a hoe, to plant seeds and watch, their renewal of life, this is the commonest delight of the race, the most satisfactory thing a man can do.

No man but feels more of a man in the world if he have a bit of ground that he can call his own. However small it is on the surface, it is four thousand miles deep; and that is a very handsome property.

It is fortunate that each generation does not comprehend its own ignorance. We are thus enabled to call our ancestors barbarous.

There was never a nation great until it came to the knowledge that it had nowhere in the world to go for help.

Let us celebrate the soil. Most men toil that they may own a piece of it; they measure their success in life by their ability to buy it.

Mud-pies gratify one of our first and best instincts. So long as we are dirty, we are pure.