Labor is the curse of the world, and nobody can meddle with it without becoming proportionably brutified!—Hawthorne.
Land.—There is a distinct joy in owning land, unlike that which you have in money, in houses, in books, pictures, or anything else which men have devised. Personal property brings you into society with men. But land is a part of God's estate in the globe; and when a parcel of ground is deeded to you, and you walk over it, and call it your own, it seems as if you had come into partnership with the original Proprietor of the earth.—Beecher.
Language.—The Creator has gifted the whole universe with language, but few are the hearts that can interpret it. Happy those to whom it is no foreign tongue, acquired imperfectly with care and pain, but rather a native language, learned unconsciously from the lips of the great mother.—Bulwer-Lytton.
The key to the sciences.—Bruyère.
A countryman is as warm in fustian as a king in velvet, and a truth is as comfortable in homely language as in fine speech. As to the way of dishing up the meat, hungry men leave that to the cook, only let the meat be sweet and substantial.—Spurgeon.
The machine of the poet.—Macaulay.
Poetry, indeed, cannot be translated; and, therefore, it is the poets that preserve the languages; for we would not be at the trouble to learn a language if we could have all that is written in it just as well in a translation. But as the beauties of poetry cannot be preserved in any language except that in which it was originally written, we learn the language.—Johnson.
Language most shows a man; speak that I may see thee: it springs out of the most retired and inmost part of us.—Ben Jonson.
If the way in which men express their thoughts is slipshod and mean, it will be very difficult for their thoughts themselves to escape being the same. If it is high flown and bombastic, a character for national simplicity and thankfulness cannot long be maintained.—Dean Alford.
Laughter.—Conversation never sits easier than when we now and then discharge ourselves in a symphony of laughter; which may not improperly be called the chorus of conversation.—Steele.