There is life in the ground; it goes into the seeds and also when it is stirred up goes into the man who stirs it.

The principal value of a garden is not understood. It is not to give the possessors vegetables and fruit (that can be better and cheaper done by the market-gardeners), but to teach him patience and philosophy, and the higher virtues - hope deferred, and expectations blighted, leading directly to resignation, and sometimes to alienation.

The love of dirt is among the earliest of passions, as it is the latest. Mud-pies gratify one of our first and best instincts. So long as we are dirty, we are pure. Fondness for the ground comes back to a man after he has run the round of pleasure and business, eaten dirt, and sown wild oats, drifted about the world, and taken the wind of all its moods. The love of digging in the ground (or of looking on while he pays another to dig) is as sure to come back to him, as he is sure, at last, to go under the ground, and stay there.

There is no beauty like that which was spoiled by an accident; no accomplishments and graces are so to be envied as those that circumstances rudely hindered the development of.

The most popular persons are those who take the world as it is who find the least fault.

Hoe while it is spring, and enjoy the best anticipations. It is not much matter if things do not turn out well.

The boy who expects every morning to open into a new world finds that today is like yesterday, but he believes tomorrow will be different.