Before printing was discovered, a century was equal to a thousand years.

I lingered most about the fireplace, as the most vital part of the house.

The tops of mountains are among the unfinished parts of the globe, whither it is a slight insult to the gods to climb and pry intotheir secrets, and try their effect on our humanity. Only daring and insolent men, perchance, go there. Simple races, as savages, do not climb mountains,--their tops are sacred and mysterious tracts never visited by them. Pomola is always angry with those who climb the summit of Ktaadn.

My spirits infallibly rise in proportion to the outward dreariness. Give me the ocean, the desert, or the wilderness!

Don't spend your time in drilling soldiers, who may turn out hirelings after all, but give to undrilled peasantry a country to fight for.

It is difficult to begin without borrowing, but perhaps it is the most generous course thus to permit your fellowmen to have an interest in your enterprise.

The necessity of labor and conversation with many men and things to the scholar is rarely well remembered.