Poetry is the mysticism of mankind.

I was not designed to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest.

When we consider what, to use the words of the catechism, is the chief end of man, and what are the true necessaries and means of life, it appears as if men had deliberately chosen the common mode of living because they preferred it to any other. Yet they honestly think there is no choice left.

What is religion? That which is never spoken.

Some things are really necessaries of life in some circles, which in others are luxuries merely and in others still are entirely unknown.

It is an interesting question how far men would retain their relative rank if they were divested of their clothes.

One attraction in coming to the woods to live was that I should have leisure and opportunity to see the spring come in.