To own a bit of ground, to scratch it with a hoe, to plant seeds, and watch the renewal of life - this is the commonest delight of the race, the most satisfactory thing a man can do.

The world is full of poetry as the earth is of pay-dirt; one only needs to know how to strike it.

The excellence of a gift lies in its appropriateness rather than in its value

Isolation breeds conceit.

Mud-pies gratify one of our first and best instincts. So long as we are dirty, we are pure.

Nature is entirely indifferent to any reform. She perpetuates a fault as persistently as a virtue.

Happy is said to be the family which can eat onions together. They are, for the time being, separate, from the world, and have a harmony of aspiration.