Nowadays the host does not admit you to his hearth, but has got the mason to build one for yourself somewhere in his alley, and hospitality is the art of keeping you at the greatest distance.

Furniture! Thank God, I can sit and I can stand without the aid of a furniture warehouse.

I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits, unless I spend four hours a day at least - and it is commonly more than that - sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields, absolutely free from all worldly engagements.

What stuff is the man made of who is not coexistent in our thought with the purest and sublimest truth?

Some hard and dry book in a dead language, which you have found it impossible to read at home, but for which you still have a lingering regard, is the best to carry with you on a journey.

To have made even one person's life a little better, that is to succeed.

We could not help being struck by the seeming, though innocent, indifference of Nature to these men's necessities, while elsewhereshe was equally serving others. Like a true benefactress, the secret of her service is unchangeableness. Thus is the busiest merchant, though within sight of his Lowell, put to pilgrim's shifts, and soon comes to staff and scrip and scallop-shell.