What would human life be without forests, those natural cities?

The inhabitants of the Cape generally do not complain of their "soil," but will tell you that it is good enough for them to dry their fish on.

Whatever sentence will bear to be read twice, we may be sure was thought twice.

If I have unjustly wrested a plank from a drowning man, I must restore it to him though I drown myself.

It is surprising how many great men and women a small house will contain. I have had twenty-five or thirty souls, with their bodies, at once under my roof, and yet we often parted without being aware that we had come very near to one another.

It takes a man of genius to travel in his own country, in his native village; to make any progress between his door and his gate.

The virtue of making two blades of grass grow where only one grew before does not begin to be superhuman.