I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for that one.

Is the babe young? When I behold it, it seems more venerable than the oldest man.

Why look in the dark for light?

The wise are not so much wiser than others as respecters of their own wisdom.

The government itself, which is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it.

That we have but little faith is not sad, but that we have little faithfulness. By faithfulness faith is earned.

I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to keep an appointment with a beechtree, or a yellow birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines.