The present is an eternal now.

May I a small house and large garden have; And a few friends, And many books, both true.

I never had any other desire so strong, and so like covetousness, as that ... I might be master at last of a small house and a large garden, with very moderate conveniences joined to them, and there dedicate the remainder of my life to the culture of them and the study of nature.

Curiosity does, no less than devotion, pilgrims make.

Enjoy the present hour, Be thankful for the past, And neither fear nor wish Th' approaches of the last.

Solitude can be used well by very few people. They who do must have a knowledge of the world to see the foolishness of it, and enough virtue to despise all the vanity.

s a scene of changes, and to be constant in Nature were inconstancy.