The works of great poets have never been read by mankind, for only great poets can read them.

Every sentence is the result of a long probation.

The world, which the Greeks called Beauty, has been made such by being gradually divested of every ornament which was not fitted to endure.

And pray what more can a reasonable man desire, in peaceful times, in ordinary noons, than a sufficient number of ears of green sweet corn boiled, with the addition of salt?

We seem but to linger in manhood to tell the dreams of our childhood, and they vanish out of memory ere we learn the language.

My profession is to be always on the alert to find God in nature, to know his lurking-places, to attend all the oratorios, the operas in nature.

Nature has from the first expanded the minute blossoms of the forest only toward the heavens, above men's heads and unobserved bythem. We see only the flowers that are under our feet in the meadows.