One must maintain a little bittle of summer, even in the middle of winter.

Duty is one and invariable; it requires no impossibilities, nor can it ever be disregarded with impunity.

Be assured that every man's success is in proportion to his average ability. The meadow flowers spring and bloom where the watersannually deposit their slime, not where they reach in some freshet only. A man is not his hope, nor his despair, nor yet his past deed. We know not yet what we have done, still less what we are doing. Wait till evening, and other parts of our day's work will shine than we had thought at noon, and we shall discover the real purport of our toil. As when the farmer has reached the end of the furrow and looks back, he can tell best where the pressed earth shines most.

Strange that so few ever come to the woods to see how the pine lives and grows and spires, lifting its evergreen arms to the light,--to see its perfect success; but most are content to behold it in the shape of many broad boards brought to market, and deem that its true success! But the pine is no more lumber than man is, and to be made into boards and houses is no more its true and highest use than the truest use of a man is to be cut down and made into manure.

There will never be a really free and enlightened state until the state comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived.

Decay and disease are often beautiful, like the pearly tear of the shellfish and the hectic glow of consumption.

Man is the artificer of his own happiness.