We find ourselves under the government of a system of political institutions, conducing more essentially to the ends of civil and religious liberty, than any of which the history of former times tells us.
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
The mind is not the heart.
I may yet live, as I know others live,
To wish in vain to let go with the mind
Of cares, at night, to sleep; but nothing tells me
That I need learn to let go with the heart.
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
But Shakspeare has no peculiarity, no importunate topic; but all is duly given; no veins, no curiosities: no cow-painter, no bird-fancier, no mannerist is he: he has no discoverable egotism: the great he tells greatly; the small, subordinately. He is wise without emphasis or assertion; he is strong, as nature is strong, who lifts the land into mountain slopes without effort, and by the same rule as she floats a bubble in the air, and likes as well to do the one as the other. This makes that equality of power in farce, tragedy, narrative, and love-songs; a merit so incessant, that each reader is incredulous of the perception of other readers.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)