Father sticks to it that anything that promises to pay too much can't help being risky.

Vermont tradition is based on the idea that group life should leave each person as free as possible to arrange his own life. This freedom is the only climate in which (we feel) a human being may create his own happiness. ... Character itself lies deep and secret below the surface, unknown and unknowable by others. It is the mysterious core of life, which every man or woman has to cope with alone, to live with, to conquer and put in order, or to be defeated by.

What a fearfully distracting, perplexing and heart-searching business it is to live.

I never heard of anybody who admired the character of sheep. Even the gentlest human personalities in contact with them are annoyed by their lack of brains, courage and initiative, by their extraordinary ability to get themselves into uncomfortable or dangerous situations and then wait in inert helplessness for someone to rescue them.

Taking somebody's sacrifices is like taking counterfeit money. You're only the poorer.

the most elementary experience of life proves that the effects of compulsion last exactly as long as the physical or moral club can be applied.

gossip ... is only fiction produced by non-professionals.