Art is not tame, and Nature is not wild, in the ordinary sense. A perfect work of man's art would also be wild or natural in a good sense.

What is a country without rabbits and partridges? They are among the most simple and indigenous animal products; ancient and venerable families known to antiquity as to modern times; of the very hue and substance of Nature, nearest allied to leaves and to the ground.

You may rely on it that you have the best of me in my books, and that I am not worth seeing personally, the stuttering, blunderingclod-hopper that I am. Even poetry, you know, is in one sense an infinite brag and exaggeration. Not that I do not stand on all that I have written,--but what am I to the truth I feebly utter?

When a man truly commits, the universe will conspire to assure his success.

To have made even one person's life a little better, that is to succeed.

Our village life would stagnate if it were not for the unexplored forests and meadows which surround it.

How shall we account for our pursuits, if they are original? We get the language with which to describe our various lives out of acommon mint.