For most men, it appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty about it (life), whether it is of the devil or of God, and have somewhat hastily concluded that it is the chief end of man here to 'glorify God and enjoy him forever.'

Both place and time were changed, and I dwelt nearer to those parts of the universe and to those eras in history which had most attracted me.

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.

There are nowadays professors of philosophy, but not philosophers

Can there be any greater reproach than an idle learning? Learn to split wood, at least.

I seem to have dodged all my days with one or two persons, and lived upon expectation,--as if the bud would surely blossom; and soI am content to live.

The natural historian is not a fisherman who prays for cloudy days and good luck merely; but as fishing has been styled "a contemplative man's recreation," introducing him profitably to woods and water, so the fruit of the naturalist's observations is not in new genera or species, but in new contemplations still, and science is only a more contemplative man's recreation.