There are continents and seas in the moral world, to which every man is an isthmus or inlet, yet unexplored by him.

It is in vain to dream of a wildness distant from ourselves. There is none such.

A thoroughbred business man cannot enter heartily upon the business of life without first looking into his accounts.

As I love nature, as I love singing birds...I love thee, my friend.

Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed. Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.

In the meanest are all the materials of manhood, only they are not rightly disposed.

Books of natural history aim commonly to be hasty schedules, or inventories of God's property, by some clerk. They do not in the least teach the divine view of nature, but the popular view, or rather the popular method of studying nature, and make haste to conduct the persevering pupil only into that dilemma where the professors always dwell.