The biggest happiness is when at the end of the year you feel better than at the beginning

We are superior to the joy we experience.

It is so rare to meet with a man outdoors who cherishes a worthy thought in his mind, which is independent of the labor of his hands. Behind every man's busy-ness there should be a level of undisturbed serenity and industry, as within the reef encircling a coral isle there is always an expanse of still water, where the depositions are going on which will finally raise it above the surface.

He who hears the rippling of rivers in these degenerate days will not utterly despair.

That is mere sentimentality that lies abed by day and thinks itself white, far from the tan and callus of experience.

The true finish is the work of time, and the use to which a thing is put. The elements are still polishing the pyramids.

The largest pond is as sensitive to atmospheric changes as the globule of mercury in its tube.