I do not know what right I have to so much happiness, but rather hold it in reserve till the time of my desert.

He is the rich man, and enjoys the fruit of his riches, who summer and winter forever can find delight in his own thoughts.

This fair homestead has fallen to us, and how little have we done to improve it, how little have we cleared and hedged and ditched! We are too inclined to go hence to a "better land," without lifting a finger, as our farmers are moving to the Ohio soil; but would it not be more heroic and faithful to till and redeem this New England soil of the world?

If I seem to boast more than is becoming, my excuse is that I brag for humanity rather than for myself.

What is called eloquence in the forum is commonly found to be rhetoric in the study. The orator yields to the inspiration of a transient occasion, and speaks to the mob before him, to those who can hear him; but the writer, whose more equable life is his occasion, and who would be distracted by the event and the crowd which inspire the orator, speaks to the intellect and heart of mankind, to all in any age who can understand him.

Do we call this the land of the free? What is it to be free from King George the Fourth and continue the slaves of prejudice? What is it to be born free and equal, and not to live? What is the value of any political freedom, but as a means to moral freedom?

One should be always on the trail of one's own deepest nature. For it is the fearless living out of your own essential nature that connects you to the Divine.