Philosophy, having crept clinging to the rocks so far, puts out its feelers many ways in vain.

Eastward I go only by force; but westward I go free.

In society, in the best institutions of men, it is easy to detect a certain precocity. When we should still be growing children, we are already little men. Give me a culture which imports much muck from the meadows, and deepens the soil,--not that which trusts to heating manures, and improved implements, and modes of culture only!

You must converse much with the field and the woods if you would imbibe such health into your mind and spirit as you covet for your body

I was not born to be forced.

It is impossible to give a soldier a good education without making him a deserter. His natural foe is the government that drills him.

Speech is for the convenience of those who are hard of hearing; but there are many fine things which we cannot say if we have to shout.