Within the memory of many of my townsmen the road near which my house stands resounded with the laugh and gossip of inhabitants, and the woods which border it were notched and dotted here and there with their little gardens and dwellings, though it was then much more shut in by the forest than now.

I am wont to think that men are not so much the keepers of herds as herds are the keepers of men. The former are so much the freer.

Of all the men who were said to be my contemporaries, it seemed to me that John Brown was the only one who had not died.

When my legs begin to move, the thoughts begin to flow.

The world is a strange place for a playhouse to stand within it.

The morning, which is the most memorable season of the day, is the awakening hour. Then there is least somnolence in us; and for an hour, at least, some part of us awakes which slumbers all the rest of the day and night... All memorable events, I should say, transpire in morning time and in a morning atmosphere. The Vedas say, “All intelligences awake with the morning.

Go not to the object; let the object come to you.