Nature puts no question and answers none which we mortals ask. She has long ago taken her resolution.

There are nine hundred and ninety-nine patrons of virtue to one virtuous man.

We are conscious of an animal in us, which awakens in proportion as our higher nature slumbers. It is reptile and sensual, and perhaps cannot be wholly expelled; like the worms which, even in life and health, occupy our bodies. Possibly we may withdraw from it, but never change its nature. I fear that it may enjoy a certain health of its own; that we may be well, yet not pure.

Poverty ... It is life near the bone, where it is sweetest.

It is not that we love to be alone, but that we love to soar, and when we do soar, the company grows thinner and thinner until there is none at all. …We are not the less to aim at the summits though the multitude does not ascend them.

Today...the bluebirds, old and young, have revisited their box, as if they would fain repeat the summer without intervention of winter, if Nature would let them.

There is an orientalism in the most restless pioneer, and the farthest west is but the farthest east.