A truly good book is something as natural, and as unexpectedly and unaccountably fair and perfect, as a wild-flower discovered on the prairies of the West or in the jungles of the East.

Have you not budged an inch, then? Such is the daily news. Its facts appear to float in the atmosphere.... We should wash ourselves clean of such news. Of what consequence, though our planet explode, if there is no character involved in the explosion? In health we have not the least curiosity about such events. We do not live for idle amusement. I would not run round a corner to see the world blow up.

Probably if our lives were more conformed to nature, we should not need to defend ourselves against her heats and colds, but findher our constant nurse and friend, as do plants and quadrupeds.

Front yards are not made to walk in, but, at most, through, and you could go in the back way.

We shall be reduced to gnaw the very crust of the earth for nutriment.

Good for the body is the work of the body, good for the soul the work of the soul, and good for either the work of the other.

What would human life be without forests, those natural cities?