Life is so short that it is not wise to take roundabout ways, nor can we spend much time in waiting.... We have not got half-way to dawn yet.

As the least drop of wine tinges the whole goblet, so the least particle of truth colors our whole life.

A hero's love is as delicate as a maiden's.

Who knows what the human body would expand and flow out to under a more genial heaven?

I would not have every man nor every part of a man cultivated, any more than I would have every acre of earth cultivated: part will be tillage, but the greater part will be meadow and forest, not only serving an immediate use, but preparing a mould against a distant future, by the annual decay of the vegetation which it supports.

The moles nested in my cellar, nibbling every third potato, and making a snug bed even there of some hair left after plastering and of brown paper; for even the wildest animals love comfort and warmth as well as man, and they survive the winter only because they are so careful to secure them.

Where the citizen uses a mere sliver or board, the pioneer uses the whole trunk of a tree.