The first sparrow of spring! The year beginning with younger hope than ever!
On tops of mountains, as everywhere to hopeful souls, it is always morning.
The success of great scholars and thinkers is commonly a courtier-like success, not kingly, not manly.
This was sheer idleness to my fellow-townsmen, no doubt; but if the birds and flowers had tried me by their standard, I should not have been found wanting. A man must find his occasions in himself, it is true. The natural day is very calm, and will hardly reprove his indolence.
Who hears the fishes when they cry?
I think it would be worth the while to introduce a school of children to such [an oak grove], that they may get an idea of the primitive oaks before they are all gone, instead of hiring botanists to lecture to them when it is too late.