A sentence should be read as if its author, had he held a plough instead of a pen, could have drawn a furrow deep and straight to the end.

Endeavor to live the life you have imagined.

You cannot receive a shock unless you have an electric affinity for that which shocks you.

In my walks, I would fain return to my senses. What business have I in the woods if I am thinking of something out of the woods?

In society, in the best institutions of men, it is easy to detect a certain precocity. When we should still be growing children, we are already little men. Give me a culture which imports much muck from the meadows, and deepens the soil,--not that which trusts to heating manures, and improved implements, and modes of culture only!

Wealth cannot purchase any great private solace or convenience. Riches are only the means of sociality.

After the first blush of sin comes its indifference.