You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.

I have been as sincere a worshipper of Aurora as the Greeks.

I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest. What force has a multitude? They can only force me who obey a higher law than I.... I do not hear of men being forced to live this way or that by masses of men. What sort of life were that to live?

The natural historian is not a fisherman who prays for cloudy days and good luck merely; but as fishing has been styled "a contemplative man's recreation," introducing him profitably to woods and water, so the fruit of the naturalist's observations is not in new genera or species, but in new contemplations still, and science is only a more contemplative man's recreation.

The flowers of the apple are perhaps the most beautiful of any tree's, so copious and so delicious to both sight and scent.

Nature is mythical and mystical always, and works with the license and extravagance of genius. She has her luxurious and florid style as well as art.

There is nothing more difficult to find than oneself.