I thought, as I have my living to get, and have not eaten today, that I might go a- fishing. That's the true industry for poets. It is the only trade I have learned.

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.

Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour.

Truly, our greatest blessings are very cheap.

We must love our friend so much that she shall be associated with our purest and holiest thoughts alone.

It is not so important that many should be good as you, as that there be some absolute goodness somewhere; for that will leaven the whole lump.

Thus the State never intentionally confronts a man's sense, intellectual or moral, but only his body, his senses. It is not armed with superior wit or honesty, but with superior physical strength. I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion.