American Seminar Semester 1 Review: Quotes

"It has often appeared to me, that if God should mark iniquity against me, I should appear the very worst of all mankind; of all that have been since the beginning of the world of this time: and that I should have by far the lowest place in hell. . . Infinite upon infinite. Infinite upon infinite!"

Jonathan Edwards

"For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. . ."

John Winthrop

"I reapproached the wall. I replied to the yells of him who clamoured. I reechoed - I aided - I surpassed them in volume and in strength."

Edgar Allan Poe

"Slaves sing most when they are most unhappy. The songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart."

Fredrick Douglass

"At the close of the services, the people hurried out with indecorous confusion, eager to communicate their pent-up amazement."

Nathaniel Hawthorne

". . . this benefit turned to their hurt, and this accession of strength to their weakness. . . And no man now thought he could live, except he had cattle and a great deal of ground to keep them, all striving to increase their stocks. . . And this, I fear, will be the ruin of New England."

William Bradford

"Nemo me impune lacessit."

Edgar Allan Poe

"It struck me with awful force. It was the blood-stained gate, the entrance to the hell of slavery, through which I was about to pass."

Fredrick Douglass

"He was a crafty man, and resorted to many means to accomplish his purposes. . . He peopled my young mind with unclean images, such as only a vile monster could think of."

Harriet Jacobs

"The poor black woman had but the one child, whose eyes she saw closing in death, while she thanked God for taking her away from the greater bitterness of life."

Harriet Jacobs

"Soon she will learn to tremble when she hears her master's footfall. She will be compelled to realize that she is no longer a child. If God has bestowed beauty upon her, it will prove her greatest curse."

Harriet Jacobs

"I felt that I breathed an atmosphere of sorrow. An air of stern, deep, and irredeemable gloom hung over and pervaded all."

Edgar Allan Poe

"Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives, as they have been violent in their deaths.

James Madison

"For this end, we must be knit together in this work as one man. . . We must delight in each other, make other's conditions our own, rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together. . ."

John Winthrop

"These God-breathing machines are no more, in the sight of their masters, than the cotton they plant, or the horses they tend."

Harriet Jacobs

"The wrath of God is like great waters that are dammed for the present. . ."

Jonathan Edwards

"They were noble souls; they not only possessed loving hearts, but brave ones. We were linked and interlinked with each other. I loved them with a love stronger than anything I have experienced since."

Fredrick Douglass

"When God gives a special commission he looks to have it strictly observed in every article."

John Winthrop

". . . they had now no friends to welcome them, nor inns to entertain or refresh their weatherbeaten bodies, no houses or much less towns to repair to, to seek for succor."

William Bradford

"We are taxed twice as much by our idleness, three times as much by our pride, and four times as much by our folly. . ."

Benjamin Franklin

"I made seeking my salvation the main business of my life."

Jonathan Edwards

". . . envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion. . ."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

"My heart, as it were, panted after this to lie low before GOD, and in the dust; that I might be nothing, and that God might be all; that I might become as a little child."

Jonathan Edwards

"I have loved the doctrines of the gospel: they have been to my soul like green pastures. The gospel has seemed to me to be the richest treasure. . ."

Jonathan Edwards

". . . want of care does us more damage than want of knowledge."

Benjamin Franklin

"The bow of God's wrath is bent, and the arrow made ready on the string, and justice bends the arrow at your heart. . ."

Jonathan Edwards

"I never dreamed I was a piece of merchandise."

Harriet Jacobs

"Object there was none. Passion there was none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me."

Edgar Allan Poe

"God's excellency, his wisdom, his purity and love, seemed to appear in everything; in the sun, moon and stars; in the clouds, and blue sky; in the grass, flowers, trees; in the water, and all nature. . ."

Jonathan Edwards

"But do your thing, and I shall know you."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

"And now you have an extraordinary opportunity, a day wherein Christ has thrown the door of mercy wide open, and stands in calling and crying with a loud voice to poor sinners. . ."

Jonathan Edwards

"And of these in the time of most distress, there was but six or seven sound persons, who to their great commendations be it spoken, spared no pains, night nor day, but with abundance of toil and hazard of their own health, fetched them wood, made them fires, dressed them meat, made their beds, washed their loathsome clothes. . ."

William Bradford

"Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist. . . Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of our own mind."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The war is inevitable and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come."

Patrick Henry

"But the most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property."

James Madison

"But, alas! This kind heart had but a short time to remain such. The fatal poison of irresponsible power was already in her hands, and soon commenced its infernal work."

Fredrick Douglass

"A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best; but what has said or done otherwise, shall give him no peace."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offence, I should consider myself as guilty of treason towards my country, and of an act of disloyalty towards the majesty of heaven, which I revere above all earthly kings."

Patrick Henry

"The health of the eye seems to demand a horizon. We are never tired, so long as we can see far enough."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The more I read, the more I was led to abhor and detest my enslavers."

Fredrick Douglass

"Indeed the river is a perpetual gala, and boasts each month a new ornament."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

"For of all the slaveholders with whom I have ever met, religious slaveholders are the worst."

Fredrick Douglass

"Still we live meanly like ants. . . Our life is frittered away by detail. . . Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!"

Henry David Thoreau

"But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded."

Edgar Allan Poe

"Moral reform is the effort to throw off sleep."

Henry David Thoreau

"Why should we live with such hurry and waste of life? We are determined to be starved before we are hungry."

Henry David Thoreau

"Then again, do not tell me, as a good man did to-day, of my obligation to put all poor men in good situations. Are they my poor?"

Henry David Thoreau

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

"I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor."

Henry David Thoreau

"They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger?"

Patrick Henry

"Extend the sphere, and you take in a greater variety of parties and interests; you make it less probable that a majority of the whole will have a common motive to invade the rights of other citizens."

James Madison

"To go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

es

"The misery of man appears like childish petulance, when we explore the steady and prodigal provision that has been made for his support and delight on this green ball which floats him through the heavens."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are always inaccessible."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

"I smiled, - for what had I to fear?"

Edgar Allan Poe

"Superfluous wealth can buy superfluities only. Money is not required to buy one necessary of the soul."

Henry David Thoreau

"The subject had reference to secret sin, and those sad mysteries which we hide from our nearest and dearest, and would fain conceal from our own consciousness. . ."

Nathaniel Hawthorne

"To an anomalous species of terror I found him a bounden slave."

Edgar Allan Poe

"A living dog is better than a dead lion."

Henry David Thoreau

"I struggled to reason off the nervousness which had dominion over me."

Edgar Allan Poe

"But what madness must it be to run in debt for these superfluities!"

Benjamin Franklin

"Standing on the bare ground, - my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, - all mean egotism vanishes."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

". . . when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge."

Edgar Allan Poe

"The nonchalance of boys. . . is the healthy attitude of human nature."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

"If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away."

Henry David Thoreau

"The only obligation which I have a right to assume, is to do at any time what I think right."

Henry David Thoreau

"Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it."

Henry David Thoreau

"There will never be a really free and enlightened State, until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly."

Henry David Thoreau

"The best thing a man can do for his culture when he is rich is to endeavour to carry out those schemes which he entertained when he was poor."

Henry David Thoreau

"If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours."

Henry David Thoreau

"Nature is a setting that fits equally well a comic or a mourning piece."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

". . . and he did not perceive that my smile NOW was at the thought of his immolation."

Edgar Allan Poe

"Do not desert me. . . Oh, you know not how lonely I am and how frightened to be alone. . . Do not leave me in this miserable obscurity for ever!"

Nathaniel Hawthorne

"All through life that piece of crape had . . . kept him in that saddest of all prisons, his own heart. . ."

Nathaniel Hawthorne