The really efficient laborer will be found not to crowd his day with work, but will saunter to his task surrounded by a wide halo of ease and leisure.

Long enough I had heard of irrelevant things; now at length I was glad to make acquaintance with the light that dwells in rotten wood. Where is all your knowledge gone to? It evaporates completely, for it has no depth.

The keeping of bees is like the direction of sunbeams.

He who cannot read is worse than deaf and blind, is yet but half alive, is still-born.

I have thoroughly tried school-keeping, and found that my expenses were in proportion, or rather out of proportion, to my income,for I was obliged to dress and train, not to say think and believe, accordingly, and I lost my time into the bargain. As I did not teach for the good of my fellow-men, but simply for a livelihood, this was a failure. I have tried trade; but I found that it would take ten years to get under way in that, and that then I should probably be on my way to the devil. I was actually afraid that I might by that time be doing what is called a good business.

If some are prosecuted for abusing children, others deserve to be prosecuted for maltreating the face of nature committed to their care.

The most primitive places left with us are the swamps, where the spruce still grows shaggy with usnea.