Regrets are idle; yet history is one long regret. Everything might have turned out so differently.

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.

There is no moment of delight in any pilgrimage like the beginning of it.

The world so quickly adjusts itself after any loss, that the return of the departed would nearly always throw it, even the circle most interested, into confusion.

Hoeing in the garden on a bright, soft May day, when you are not obligated to, is nearly equal to the delight of going trouting.

Memory has the singular characteristic of recalling in a friend absent, as in a journey long past, only that which is agreeable.

I do not know the names of all the weeds and plants, I have to do as Adam did in his garden... name things as I find them.