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

The change from storm and winter to serene and mild weather, from dark and sluggish hours to bright and elastic ones, is a memorable crisis which all things proclaim. It is seemingly instantaneous at last.

Who could believe in the prophecies ... that the world would end this summer, while one milkweed with faith matured its seeds.

Each thought that is welcomed and recorded is a nest egg, by the side of which more will be laid.

You don't know your testament when you see it.

I, on my side, require of every writer, first or last, a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not merely what he has heard of other men's lives; some such account as he would send to his kindred from a distant land; for if he has lived sincerely, it must have been in a distant land to me.

Men have a respect for scholarship and learning greatly out of proportion to the use they commonly serve.