"William Cullen Bryant on 4literature.net"

“The right to discuss freely and openly, by speech, by the pen, by the press, all political questions, and to examine and animadvert upon all political institutions, is a right so clear and certain, so interwoven with our other liberties, so necessary, in fact to their existence, that without it we must fall at once into depression or anarchy. To say that he who holds unpopular opinions must hold them at the peril of his life, and that, if he expresses them in public, he has only himself to blame if they who disagree with him should rise and put him to death, is to strike at all rights, all liberties, all protection of the laws, and to justify and extenuate all crimes.”

“The victory of endurance born.”

“The groves were God's first temples.”

“Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste.”

“There is something in this universe which justifies William Cullen Bryant in saying Truth crushed to earth will rise again.”