It is remarkable how long men will believe in the bottomlessness of a pond without taking the trouble to sound it.

Men nowhere, east or west, live yet a natural life, round which the vine clings, and which the elm willingly shadows. Man would desecrate it by his touch, and so the beauty of the world remains veiled to him. He needs not only to be spiritualized, but naturalized, on the soil of earth.

I have not earned what I have already enjoyed.

To say that a man is your Friend means commonly no more than this, that he is not your enemy.

I should have liked to come across a large community of pines, which had never been invaded by the lumbering army.

Economy is a subject which admits of being treated with levity, but it cannot so be disposed of.

As with our colleges, so with a hundred "modern improvements"; there is an illusion about them; there is not always a positive advance. The devil goes on exacting a compound interest to the last for his early share and numerous succeeding investments in them.