That government is best which governs not at all; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have.

Of what significance are the things you can forget.

Our last deed, like the young of the land crab, wends its way to the sea of cause and effect as soon as born, and makes a drop there to eternity.

We need the tonic of the wilderness, to wade sometimes in the marsh where the bitten and the meadow hen lurk, and hear the booming of the snipe; to smell the whispering sedge where only some wilder and more solitary fowl builds her nest, and the mink crawls with its belly close to the ground.

Nature has left nothing to the mercy of man.

Certainly, we do not need to be soothed and entertained always like children. He who resorts to the easy novel, because he is languid, does no better than if he took a nap.

It is an unfortunate discovery certainly, that of a law which binds us where we did not know before that we were bound.