The soil out of which such men as he are made is good to be born on, good to live on, good to die for and to be buried in. - James Russell Lowell

Nature, they say, doth dote,
And cannot make a man
Save on some worn-out plan,
Repeating us by rote.

The foolish and the dead alone never change their opinion. The course of a great statesman resembles that of navigable rivers, avoiding immovable obstacles with noble bends of concession, seeking the broad levels of opinion on which men soonest settle and longest dwell, following and marking the almost imperceptible slopes of national tendency, yet always aiming at direct advances, always recruited from sources nearer heaven, and sometimes bursting open paths of progress and fruitful human commerce through what seem the eternal barriers of both.

To say why gals acts so or so,
Or don't, 'ould be persumin';
Mebby to mean yes an' say no
Comes nateral to women.