Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion.

But man's capacities have never been measured; nor are we to judge of what he can do by any precedents, so little have been tried.

However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are.

Books of natural history make the most cheerful winter reading. I read in Audubon with a thrill of delight, when the snow covers the ground, of the magnolia, and the Florida keys, and their warm sea breezes; of the fence-rail, and the cotton-tree, and the migrations of the rice-bird; of the breaking up of winter in Labrador, and the melting of the snow on the forks of the Missouri; and owe an accession of health to these reminiscences of luxuriant nature.

The very thrills of genius are disorganizing. The body is never quite acclimated to its atmosphere, but how often, succumbs and goes into a decline.

There are times when we have had enough even of our Friends.

Let things alone; let them weigh what they will; let them soar or fall.