If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.

It is not in vain that man speaks to man. This is the value of literature.

Unless we do more than simply learn the trade of our time, we are but apprentices, and not yet masters of the art of life.

City life is millions of people being lonesome together.

The universe constantly and obediently answers to our conceptions; whether we travel fast or slow, the track is laid for us. Let us spend our lives in conceiving then. The poet or the artist never yet had so fair and noble a design but some of his posterity at least could accomplish it.

We seem to think that the earth must go through the ordeal of sheep-pasturage before it is habitable by man.

I turned my face more exclusively than ever to the woods, where I was better known.