William Cullen Bryant Quotes

The birch-bark canoe of the savage seems to me one of the most beautiful and perfect things of the kind constructed by human art.

- William Cullen Bryant

The Parisian has his amusements as regularly as his meals, the theatre, music, the dance, a walk in the Tuilleries, a refection in the cafe, to which ladies resort as commonly as the other sex. Perpetual business, perpetual labor, is a thing of which he seems to have no idea.

- William Cullen Bryant

A beautiful city is Richmond, seated on the hills that overlook the James River. The dwellings have a pleasant appearance, often standing by themselves in the midst of gardens. In front of several, I saw large magnolias, their dark, glazed leaves glittering in the March sunshine.

- William Cullen Bryant

A herd of prairie-wolves will enter a field of melons and quarrel about the division of the spoils as fiercely and noisily as so many politicians.

- William Cullen Bryant

Nothing can be more striking to one who is accustomed to the little inclosures called public parks in our American cities, than the spacious, open grounds of London. I doubt, in fact, whether any person fully comprehends their extent, from any of the ordinary descriptions of them, until he has seen them or tried to walk over them.

- William Cullen Bryant

I think I shall return to America even a better patriot than when I left it. A citizen of the United States, travelling on the continent of Europe, finds the contrast between a government of power and a government of opinion forced upon him at every step.

- William Cullen Bryant