I am grateful for what I have. My thanksgiving is perpetual.

I have not read far in the statutes of this Commonwealth. It is not profitable reading. They do not always say what is true; and they do not always mean what they say.

Gardening is civil and social, but it wants the vigor and freedom of the forest and the outlaw.

It's only by forgetting yourself that you draw near to God.

If we cannot sing of faith and triumph, we will sing our despair. We will be that kind of bird. There are day owls, and there arenight owls, and each is beautiful and even musical while about its business.

A cold and searching wind drives away all contagion, and nothing can withstand it but what has a virtue in it, and accordingly, whatever we meet with in cold and bleak places, as the tops of mountains, we respect for a sort of sturdy innocence, a Puritan toughness. All things beside seem to be called in for shelter, and what stays out must be part of the original frame of the universe, and of such valor as God himself.

Even the elephant carries but a small trunk on his journeys. The perfection of traveling is to travel without baggage.