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

How many wars have been caused by fits of indigestion, and how many more dynasties have been upset by the love of woman than by the hate of man?

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.

Politics make strange bedfellows.

There are those who say that trees shade the garden too much, and interfere with the growth of the vegetables. There may be something in this:but when I go down the potato rows, the rays of the sun glancing upon my shining blade, the sweat pouring down my face, I should be grateful for shade.

Simplicity is making the journey of this life with just baggage enough.

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.