Art may varnish and gild, but it can do no more.

Every sacred book, successively, has been accepted in the faith that it was to be the final resting-place of the sojourning soul;but after all, it was but a caravansary which supplied refreshment to the traveler, and directed him farther on his way to Isphahan or Bagdat. Thank God, no Hindoo tyranny prevailed at the framing of the world, but we are freemen of the universe, and not sentenced to any caste.

You may raise enough money to tunnel a mountain, but you cannot raise money enough to hire a man who is minding his own business.

The sun is but a morning star.

It often happens that a man develops a deeper love and friendship with his pet cat or dog than he does with most of the other humans in his life.

We can never have enough of nature. We must be refreshed by the sight of inexhaustible vigor, vast and titanic features, the sea-coast with its wrecks, the wilderness with its living and its decaying trees, the thunder-cloud, and the rain.

I turned my face more exclusively than ever to the woods, where I was better known.