Why should not the knowledge, the skill, the expertness, the assiduity, and the spirited hazards of trade and commerce, when crown...ed with success, be entitled to give those flattering distinctions by which mankind are so universally captivated? Such are the specious, but false arguments for a proposition which always will find numerous advocates, in a nation where men are every day starting up from obscurity to wealth. To refute them is needless. The general sense of mankind cries out, with irresistible force, "Un gentilhomme est toujours gentilhomme."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Obscurest night involv'd the sky, Th' Atlantic billows roar'd,... When such a destin'd wretch as I, Wash'd headlong from on board, Of friends, of hope, of all bereft, His floating home for ever left.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The solar system has no anxiety about its reputation, and the credit of truth and honesty is as safe; nor have I any fear that a s...keptical bias can be given by leaning hard on the sides of fate, of practical power, or of trade, which the doctrine of Faith cannot down-weigh.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
'Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays:... Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays, And one by one back in the Closet lays.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The rush to California ... and the attitude, not merely of merchants, but of philosophers and prophets, so called, in relation to ...it, reflect the greatest disgrace on mankind. That so many are ready to live by luck, and so get the means of commanding the labor of others less lucky, without contributing any value to society! And that is called enterprise! I know of no more startling development of the immorality of trade, and all the common modes of getting a living. The philosophy and poetry and religion of such a mankind are not worth the dust of a puffball. The hog that gets his living by rooting, stirring up the soil so, would be ashamed of such company. If I could command the wealth of all the worlds by lifting my finger, I would not pay such a price for it.... What a comment, what a satire, on our institutions! The conclusion will be, that mankind will hang itself upon a tree.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
When formerly I was looking about to see what I could do for a living, some sad experience in conforming to the wishes of friends ...being fresh in my mind to tax my ingenuity, I thought often and seriously of picking huckleberries; that surely I could do, and its small profits might suffice,--for my greatest skill has been to want but little,--so little capital it required, so little distraction from my wonted moods, I foolishly thought. While my acquaintances went unhesitatingly into trade or the professions, I contemplated this occupation as most like theirs; ranging the hills all summer to pick the berries which came in my way, and thereafter carelessly dispose of them.... But I have since learned that trade curses everything it handles; and though you trade in messages from heaven, the whole curse of trade attaches to the business.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The city is always recruited from the country. The men in cities who are the centres of energy, the driving-wheels of trade, polit...ics or practical arts, and the women of beauty and genius, are the children or grandchildren of farmers, and are spending the energies which their fathers' hardy, silent life accumulated in frosty furrows in poverty, necessity and darkness.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
This whole business of Trade gives me to pause and think, as it constitutes false relations between men; inasmuch as I am prone to... count myself relieved of any responsibility to behave well and nobly to that person who I pay with money, whereas if I had not that commodity, I should be put on my good behavior in all companies, and man would be a benefactor to man, as being himself his only certificate that he had a right to those aids and services which each asked of the other.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »