Genius is a light which makes the darkness visible, like the lightning's flash, which perchance shatters the temple of knowledge itself.

We live thick and are in each other's way, and stumble over one another, and I think we thus lose some respect for one another.

I never dreamed of any enormity greater than I have committed. I never knew, and never shall know, a worse man than myself.

On the 31st of August, 1846, I left Concord in Massachusetts for Bangor and the backwoods of Maine,... I proposed to make excursions to Mount Ktaadn, the second highest mountain in New England, about thirty miles distant, and to some of the lakes of the Penobscot, either alone or with such company as I might pick up there.

It is the art of mankind to polish the world, and every one who works is scrubbing in some part.

If it is necessary, omit one bridge over the river, go round a little there, and throw one arch at least over the darker gulf of ignorance which surrounds us.

There is no remedy for love but to love more.