Have no mean hours, but be grateful for every hour, and accept what it brings. The reality will make any sincere record respectable.

There is no beginning too small.

Every ambitious would-be empire, clarions it abroad that she is conquering the world to bring it peace, security and freedom, and it is sacrificing her sons only for the most noble and humanitarian purposes. That is a lie; and it is an ancient lie, yet generations still rise and believe it.

The botanist should make interest with the bees if he would know when the flowers open and when they close.

Live in each season as it passes: breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit.

Instead of studying how to make it worth men's while to buy my baskets, I studied rather how to avoid the necessity of selling them.

The principal, the only, thing a man makes, is his condition of fate. Though commonly he does not know it, nor put up a sign to this effect, "My own destiny made and mended here." (Not yours.) He is a master workman in the business. He works twenty-four hours a day at it, and gets it done. Whatever else he neglects or botches, no man was ever known to neglect this work. A great many pretend to make shoes chiefly, and would scout the idea that they make the hard times which they experience.