No human being, past the thoughtless age of boyhood, will wantonly murder any creature which holds its life by the same tenure that he does.

I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.

Once I went so far as to slaughter a woodchuck which ravaged my bean-field,--effect his transmigration, as a Tartar would say,--and devour him, partly for experiment's sake; but though it afforded me a momentary enjoyment, notwithstanding a musky flavor, I saw that the longest use would not make that a good practice, however it might seem to have your woodchucks ready dressed by the village butcher.

Since most of us spend our lives doing ordinary tasks, the most important thing is to carry them out extraordinarily well.

The still youthful energies of the globe have only to be directed in their proper channel.

While the very inhabitants of New England were thus fabling about the country a hundred miles inland, which was a terra incognitato them,... Champlain, the first Governor of Canada,... had already gone to war against the Iroquois in their forest forts, and penetrated to the Great Lakes and wintered there, before a Pilgrim had heard of New England.

But the divinest poem, or the life of a great man, is the severest satire.... The greater the genius, the keener the edge of the satire.