This generation has come into the world fatally late for some enterprises. Go where we will on the surface of things, men have been there before us.... But the lives of men, though more extended laterally in their range, are still as shallow as ever.

There is a patent office at the seat of government of the universe, whose managers are as much interested in the dispersion of seeds as anybody at Washington can be, and their operations are infinitely more extensive and regular.

One revelation has been made to the Indian, another to the white man.

Look not to legislatures and churches for your guidance, nor to any soulless incorporated bodies, but to inspirited or inspired ones.

The most difficult thing to understand during conversation is silence.

To what end do I lead a simple life at all, pray? That I may teach others to simplify their lives? - and so all our lives be simplified merely, like an algebraic formula? Or not, rather, that I may make use of the ground I have cleared to live more worthily and profitably?

I want nothing new, if I can have but a tithe of the old secured to me. I will spurn all wealth beside. Think of the consummate folly of attempting to go away from here! When the constant endeavor should be to get nearer and nearer here!