The West of which I speak is but another name for the Wild, and what I have been preparing to say is, that in Wildness is the preservation of the World

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.

It is the art of mankind to polish the world, and every one who works is scrubbing in some part.

Methinks some creeds in vestries and churches do forget the hunter wrapped in furs by the Great Slave Lake, and that the Esquimauxsledges are drawn by dogs, and in the twilight of the northern night the hunter does not give over to follow the seal and walrus on the ice. They are of sick and diseased imaginations who would toll the world's knell so soon. Cannot these sedentary sects do better than prepare the shrouds and write the epitaphs of those other busy living men? The practical faith of all men belies the preacher's consolation.

If we see nature as pausing, immediately all mortifies and decays; but seen as progressing, she is beautiful.

There is none who does not lie hourly in the respect he pays to false appearance.

The devil finds work for idle hands.