Henry David Thoreau, who never earned much of a living or sustained a relationship with any woman that wasn't brotherly -- who lived mostly under his parents' roof . . . who advocated one day's work and six days "off" as the weekly round and was considered a bit of a fool in his hometown . . . is probably the American writer who tells us best how to live comfortably with our most constant companion, ourselves.

Country people tend to consider that they have a corner on righteousness and to distrust most manifestations of cleverness, while people in the city are leery of righteousness but ascribe to themselves all manner of cleverness.

Sophistication" is another word for that inventive mix of tolerance, resilience, and resourcefulness city people develop.

Our loneliness makes us avid column readers these days.

Men often compete with one another until the day they die. Comradeship consists of rubbing shoulders jocularly with a competitor.

Man is different from animals in that he speculates, a high-risk activity.

If human nature eventually is going to take the place of nature everywhere, those of us who have been naturalists will have to transpose the faith in nature which is inherent in the profession to a faith in man-if necessary, man alone in the world.