The life without men praise and regard as successful is but one kind. Why should we exaggerate any one kind at the expense of the others?

We are underbred and low-lived and illiterate; and in this respect I confess I do not make any very broad distinction between theilliterateness of my townsman who cannot read at all and the illiterateness of him who has learned to read only what is for children and feeble intellects. We should be as good as the worthies of antiquity, but partly by first knowing how good they were.

We must take root; send out some little fibre at least, even every winter day.

The life without men praise and regard as successful is but one kind. Why should we exaggerate any one kind at the expense of the others?

I never yet knew the sun to be knocked down and rolled through a mud-puddle; he comes out honor-bright from behind every storm. Let us then take sides with the sun, seeing we have so much leisure.

He is the rich man, and enjoys the fruit of his riches, who summer and winter forever can find delight in his own thoughts.

By what a delicate and far-stretched contribution every island is made! What an enterprise of nature thus to lay the foundations of and to build up the future continent, of golden and silver sands and the ruins of forests, with ant-like industry.