Each reaching and aspiration is an instinct with which all nature consists and cöoperates, and therefore it is not in vain. But alas! each relaxing and desperation is an instinct too. To be active, well, happy, implies courage. To be ready to fight in a duel or a battle implies desperation, or that you hold your life cheap.

There were times when I could not afford to sacrifice the bloom of the present moment to any work, whether of head or hands. Sometimes, in a summer morning, having taken my accustomed bath, I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise till noon, rapt in reverie, amidst the pines and hickories and sumachs, in undisturbed solitude and stillness, while the birds sang around. I grew in those seasons like corn in the night, and they were far better than any work of the hands would have been. They were not time subtracted from my life, but so much over and above my usual allowance.

A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind.

Explore thyself. Herein are demanded the eye and the nerve.

Almost any mode of observation will be successful at last, for what is most wanted is method.

Faith, indeed, is all the reform that is needed; it is itself a reform.

All misfortune is but a stepping stone to fortune.