“To repay evils with kindness is the religion I was taught to practise, and this will forever be my rule.”
“If I can procure three hundred good substantial names of persons, or bodies, or institutions, I cannot fail to do well for my family, although I must abandon my life to its success, and undergo many sad perplexities and perhaps never see again my own beloved America.”
“I looked long and carefully at the picture of a stag painted by Landseer - the style was good, and the brush was handled with fine effect; but he fails in copying Nature, without which the best work will be a failure.”
“Reader, persons who have never witnessed a hurricane, such as not unfrequently desolates the sultry climates of the south, can scarcely form an idea of their terrific grandeur. One would think that, not content with laying waste all on land, it must needs sweep the waters of the shallows quite dry to quench its thirst.”
“The best recommendation I can have is my own talents, and the fruits of my own labors, and what others will not do for me, I will try and do for myself.”
“The Carrion Crow and Turkey-Buzzard possess great power of recollection, so as to recognise at a great distance a person who has shot at them, and even the horse on which he rides.”
“The eggers destroy all the eggs that are sat upon, to force the birds to lay fresh eggs, and by robbing them regularly compel them to lay until nature is exhausted, and so but few young ones are raised.”
“The varying modes of flight exhibited by our diurnal birds of prey have always been to me a subject of great interest, especially as by means of them I have found myself enabled to distinguish one species from another, to the farthest extent of my power of vision.”
“There is but one kind of love; God is love, and all his creatures derive theirs from his; only it is modified by the different degrees of intelligence in different beings and creatures.”
“Travelling through the breeding places of our species is far from being as interesting to me as it is to inspect the breeding places of the feathery tribes of our country.”