Most people dread finding out when they come to die that they have never really lived.

What are men celebrating? They are all on a committee of arrangements, and hourly expect a speech from somebody. God is only the president of the day, and Webster is his orator.

Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk.

An Englishman, methinks,--not to speak of other European nations,--habitually regards himself merely as a constituent part of theEnglish nation; he is a member of the royal regiment of Englishmen, and is proud of his company, as he has reason to be proud of it. But an American--one who has made tolerable use of his opportunities--cares, comparatively, little about such things, and is advantageously nearer to the primitive and the ultimate condition of man in these respects.

A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind.

I look upon England today as an old gentleman who is travelling with a great deal of baggage, trumpery which has accumulated fromlong housekeeping, which he has not the courage to burn.

I love Nature partly because she is not man, but a retreat from him. None of his institutions control or pervade her. There a different kind of right prevails. In her midst I can be glad with an entire gladness. If this world were all man, I could not stretch myself, I should lose all hope. He is constraint, she is freedom to me. He makes me wish for another world. She makes me content with this.