I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the world, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains. I do not wish to go below now.

When a man's conscience and the laws clash, it is his conscience that he must follow.

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

All perception of truth is the detection of an analogy.

A man may acquire a taste for wine or brandy, and so lose his love for water, but should we not pity him.

What is chastity? How shall a man know if he is chaste? He shall not know it. We have heard of this virtue, but we know not what it is.

Men will tell you sometimes that "money's hard." That shows it was not made to eat, I say.... Some of those who sank with the steamer the other day found out that money was heavy too.