The church is a sort of hospital for men's souls and as full of quackery as the hospital for their bodies.

It is truly enough said that a corporation has no conscience, but a corporation of conscientious men is a corporation with a conscience.

I am accustomed to think very long of going anywhere,--am slow to move. I hope to hear a response of the oracle first.

Many old people receive pensions for no other reason, it seems to me, but as a compensation for having lived a long time ago.

Today you may write a chapter on the advantages of traveling, and tomorrow you may write another chapter on the advantages of not traveling.

The more supple vagabond, too, is sure to appear on the least rumor of such a gathering, and the next day to disappear, and go into his hole like the seventeen-year locust, in an ever-shabby coat, though finer than the farmer's best, yet never dressed.... He especially is the creature of the occasion. He empties both his pockets and his character into the stream, and swims in such a day. He dearly loves the social slush. There is no reserve of soberness in him.

The man of genius, like a dog with a bone, or the slave who has swallowed a diamond, or a patient with the gravel, sits afar and retired, off the road, hangs out no sign of refreshment for man and beast, but says, by all possible hints and signs, I wish to be alone,--good-by,--fare-well. But the Landlord can afford to live without privacy.