Nowadays almost all man's improvements, so called, as the building of houses and the cutting down of the forest and of all large trees, simply deform the landscape, and make it more and more tame and cheap.

The most domestic cat, which has lain on a rug all her days, appears quite at home in the woods, and, by her sly and stealthy behavior, proves herself more native there than the regular inhabitants.

The outward is only the outside of that which is within. Men are not concealed under habits, but are revealed by them; they are their true clothes.

Every man looks at his wood-pile with a kind of affection.

Late in the afternoon we passed a man on the shore fishing with a long birch pole.... The characteristics and pursuits of various ages and races of men are always existing in epitome in every neighborhood. The pleasures of my earliest youth have become the inheritance of other men. This man is still a fisher, and belongs to an era in which I myself have lived.

We should come home from adventures, and perils, and discoveries every day with new experience and character.

One may almost doubt if the wisest man has learned anything of absolute value by living.