Moral reform is the effort to throw off sleep.

But why should not the New Englander try new adventures - not lay so much stress on his grain, his potato and grass crop, and his orchards - and raise other crops than these? Why concern ourselves so much about our beans for seed, and not be concerned at all about a new generation of men.

Do not engage to find things as you think they are.

If we were always, indeed, getting our living, and regulating our lives according to the last and best mode we had learned, we should never be troubled with ennui.

If we respected only what is inevitable and has a right to be, music and poetry would resound along the streets.

There are theoretical reformers at all times, and all the world over, living on anticipation.

The best books are not read even by those who are called good readers. What does our Concord culture amount to? There is in this town, with a very few exceptions, no taste for the best or for very good books even in English literature, whose words all can read and spell.