“I would rather call poetry a suggestive art. Its power of affecting the mind is by pure suggestion.”

Defining poetry as an art that awakens rather than merely describes · Lecture, On the Nature of Poetry, 1825–26

• Imagination
• Language
• Poetry

“I have seen the great West, where I ate corn bread and hominy, slept in log houses, with twenty men, women, and children in the same room.”

Recalling the rough conditions and vastness of the western frontier · Letter describing travel in Illinois, 1832

• Adventure
• America
• Travel

“The press, important as is its office, is but the servant of the human intellect, and its ministry is for good or for evil, according to the character of those who direct it.”

On the moral responsibility of journalists and editors · Speech on the press, 1872

• Ethics
• Journalism
• Responsibility