Occupation: Novelist Birth: March 10, 1779 Death: October 6, 1863
The total and universal want of manners, both in males and females, is ... remarkable ... that polish which removes the coarser and rougher parts of ….
To an American writer, I should think it must be a flattering distinction to escape the admiration of the newspapers..
I certainly do not lament the decadence of knight errantry, nor wish to exchange the protection of the laws for that of the doughtiest champion who e….
I never saw any people who appeared to live so much without amusement as the Cincinnatians.... Were it not for the churches,... Ithink there might be….
The Yankee: In acuteness and perseverance, he resembles the Scotch. In frugal neatness, he resembles the Dutch. But in truth, a Yankee is nothing el….
... it was not very unusual at Washington for a lady to take the arm of a gentleman, who was neither her husband, her father, norher brother. This re….
there is less alms-giving in America than in any other Christian country on the face of the globe. It is not in the temper of the people either to gi….
I very seldom, during my whole stay in the country, heard a sentence elegantly turned, and correctly pronounced from the lips of an American..
The American spring is by no means so agreeable as the American autumn; both move with faltering step, and slow; but this lingering pace, which is de….
[On New York City:] Were all America like this fair city, and all, no, only a small proportion of its population like the friends we left there, I sh….
All the freedom enjoyed in America, beyond what is enjoyed in England, is enjoyed solely by the disorderly at the expense of the orderly..
it is impossible for any mind of common honesty not to be revolted by the contradictions in their principles and practice. They inveigh against the g….
A single word indicative of doubt, that any thing, or every thing, in that country is not the very best in the world, produces an effect which must b….
It is rarely [Americans] dine in society, except in taverns and boarding-houses. Then they eat with the greatest possible rapidity, and in total sile….
Situated on an island which I think it will one day cover, it rises like Venice from the sea, and like that fairest of cities in the days of her glor….
Whatever may be the talents of the persons who meet together in [American] society, the very shape, form, and arrangement of the meeting is sufficien….
Mixed dinner parties of ladies and gentlemenare very rare, which is a great defect in the society; not only as depriving themof the most social and h….
I draw from life - but I always pulp my acquaintance before serving them up. You would never recognize a pig in a sausage..
I have listened to much dull and heavy conversation in America, but rarely to any that I could strictly call silly (if I except the every where privi….
It seems hardly fair to quarrel with a place because its staple commodity is not pretty, but I am sure I should have liked Cincinnati much better if ….
I heard an Englishman, who had been long resident in America, declare that in following, in meeting, or in overtaking, in the street, on the road, or….