Study and practice writing from history's greatest authors. Each passage teaches a specific technique to improve your copywriting and prose.
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Classic Passages
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Master Authors
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Gettysburg Address
Abraham Lincoln
Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived i...
Second Inaugural Address
Abraham Lincoln
With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the...
The Great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald
He smiled understandingly—much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a qua...
A Farewell to Arms
Ernest Hemingway
The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will no...
The Race Is Not to the Swift
King James Bible
I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, ...
To Be, or Not to Be
William Shakespeare
To be, or not to be, that is the question: whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and ...
Of Studies (opening)
Francis Bacon
STUDIES serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight, is in private...
Sonnet 18
William Shakespeare
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shak...
The Raven (opening stanza)
Edgar Allan Poe
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume...
Sonnet 116
William Shakespeare
Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it al...
Scrooge: A Portrait
Charles Dickens
Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grind-stone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, sc...
Loomings — The Full Opening
Herman Melville
Call me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no money in my purse,...
Circles
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The eye is the first circle; the horizon which it forms is the second; and throughout nature this pr...
A Tale of Two Cities
Charles Dickens
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foo...
Ode on a Grecian Urn
John Keats
Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness, thou foster-child of silence and slow time, sylvan histori...
Song of Myself
Walt Whitman
I celebrate myself, and sing myself, and what I assume you shall assume, for every atom belonging to...
The Man in the Arena
Theodore Roosevelt
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where th...
Nature
Ralph Waldo Emerson
To go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society. I am not solita...
The New Colossus
Emma Lazarus
Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of ...
Letter to Mrs. Bixby
Abraham Lincoln
I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the ...
The Penalty of Leadership
Theodore F. MacManus
In every field of human endeavor, he that is first must perpetually live in the white light of publi...
Somewhere West of Laramie
Ned Jordan
Somewhere west of Laramie there's a broncho-busting, steer-roping girl who knows what I'm talking ab...
The Only Thing We Have to Fear
Franklin D. Roosevelt
This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let...
I Will Fight No More Forever
Chief Joseph
I am tired of fighting. Our chiefs are killed. The old men are all dead. It is cold, and we have no ...
The Dead (closing)
James Joyce
A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched s...
O Captain! My Captain! (first stanza)
Walt Whitman
O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done, The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sou...
Hope Is the Thing with Feathers
Emily Dickinson
Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul, And sings the tune without the words, And ...
The Tell-Tale Heart — The Descent
Edgar Allan Poe
It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day a...
The Studio of Roses
Oscar Wilde
The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst th...
On the Art of Writing
Mark Twain
The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter. It is the ...
Walden: On Simplicity
Henry David Thoreau
Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or...
Self-Reliance
Ralph Waldo Emerson
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers ...
The Elements of Style
Strunk & White
Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecess...
Meditations
Marcus Aurelius
You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength. If you...
Scientific Advertising
Claude Hopkins
The competent advertising man must understand psychology. The more he knows about it the better. He ...
Preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray
Oscar Wilde
The artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim....
Preamble to the Constitution
U.S. Constitution
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure...
A House Divided
Abraham Lincoln
A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently ha...
The Philosophy of Composition
Edgar Allan Poe
Nothing is more clear than that every plot, worth the name, must be elaborated to its denouement bef...
Give Me Liberty Speech
Patrick Henry
They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall ...
The Strenuous Life
Theodore Roosevelt
I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life, the life...
Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat
Winston Churchill
I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat....
Ask Not (Inaugural Address)
John F. Kennedy
And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your...
We Few, We Happy Few
William Shakespeare
This story shall the good man teach his son; and Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by, from this day t...
Ask, Seek, Knock
King James Bible
Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: For...
O Me! O Life!
Walt Whitman
O Me! O Life!...
On The Raven
Edgar Allan Poe
Of all melancholy topics, what, according to the universal understanding of mankind, is the most mel...
We Shall Fight on the Beaches
Winston Churchill
We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall...
Psalm 23
King James Bible
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want....
Though I Speak with the Tongues of Men
King James Bible
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding ...
If—
Rudyard Kipling
If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you; if you can tru...
We Choose to Go to the Moon
John F. Kennedy
We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not...
It Was We, the People
Susan B. Anthony
It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the w...
Friends, Romans, Countrymen
William Shakespeare
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. The evil t...
To Every Thing There Is a Season
King James Bible
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, a...
The Tyger
William Blake
Tiger, tiger, burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy ...
Tested Sentences That Sell
Claude Hopkins
The only purpose of advertising is to make sales. It is profitable or unprofitable according to its ...
Pears Soap Advertisement
Thomas J. Barratt
Good morning! Have you used Pears Soap?...
The Kodak Camera
George Eastman
You press the button, we do the rest....
Declaration of Independence (Preamble)
Thomas Jefferson
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by th...
What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July
Frederick Douglass
What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than ...
The Way to Wealth
Benjamin Franklin
Courteous Reader, I have heard that nothing gives an Author so great Pleasure, as to find his Works ...
The Gospel of Wealth
Andrew Carnegie
The problem of our age is the proper administration of wealth, so that the ties of brotherhood may s...
The Right Word
Mark Twain
A powerful agent is the right word. Whenever we come upon one of those intensely right words in a bo...
The Gift of the Magi (opening)
O. Henry
One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved...
When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer
Walt Whitman
When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer...
To Build a Fire — Opening
Jack London
Day had broken cold and grey, exceedingly cold and grey, when the man turned aside from the main Yuk...
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge — Opening
Ambrose Bierce
A man stood upon a railroad bridge in northern Alabama, looking down into the swift water twenty fee...
They Laughed When I Sat Down at the Piano...
John Caples
"Can he really play?" a girl whispered. "Heavens no!" Arthur exclaimed. "He never played a note in h...
Call Me Ishmael
Herman Melville
Call me Ishmael. Some years ago, never mind how long precisely, having little or no money in my purs...
A Truth Universally Acknowledged
Jane Austen
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be i...
The War of the Worlds (opening)
H. G. Wells
No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being wat...
The Tell-Tale Heart (opening)
Edgar Allan Poe
True!—nervous—very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? T...
Down the Rabbit-Hole
Lewis Carroll
Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to...
To Sherlock Holmes, She Is Always the Woman
Arthur Conan Doyle
To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name...
The Yellow Wallpaper — Opening
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
It is very seldom that mere ordinary people like John and myself secure ancestral halls for the summ...
Letters to His Son
Lord Chesterfield
Dear Boy,...
On Writing
Benjamin Franklin
I took great delight in the study of language, and became extremely correct in the use of it. About ...
On Self-Improvement
Benjamin Franklin
I conceived the bold and arduous project of arriving at moral perfection. I wished to live without c...
The Art of Money Getting
P.T. Barnum
Those who really desire to attain an independence, have only to set their minds upon it, and adopt t...
A Christmas Carol (opening)
Charles Dickens
MARLEY was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial wa...
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (opening)
Mark Twain
You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; bu...
I'm Nobody! Who Are You?
Emily Dickinson
I'm nobody! Who are you? Are you nobody, too? Then there 's a pair of us -- don't tell! They 'd bani...
My Dear Mr. Bennet
Jane Austen
"My dear Mr. Bennet," said his lady to him one day, "have you heard that Netherfield Park is let at ...
How I Raised Myself from Failure
Andrew Carnegie
I was born in poverty and learned early to shift for myself. My first job was in a cotton factory at...
Advice to Writers
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The writer, like the priest, must be exempted from secular labor. His work needs a frolic health; he...
How Franklin Taught Himself to Write
Benjamin Franklin
About this time I met with an odd volume of the Spectator. I bought it, read it over and over, and w...
Learning to Read
Frederick Douglass
The plan which I adopted, and the one by which I was most successful, was that of making friends of ...
All the World's a Stage
William Shakespeare
All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players; they have their exits and their e...
The Great Gatsby — Opening
F. Scott Fitzgerald
In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in...
The Boys' Ambition
Mark Twain
When I was a boy, there was but one permanent ambition among my comrades in our village on the west ...
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