For my own part, I commonly attend more to nature than to man, but any affecting human event may blind our eyes to natural objects. I was so absorbed in him as to be surprised whenever I detected the routine of the natural world surviving still, or met persons going about their affairs indifferent.

Our hymn-books resound with a melodious cursing of God and enduring Him forever.

The best books are not read even by those who are called good readers. What does our Concord culture amount to? There is in this town, with a very few exceptions, no taste for the best or for very good books even in English literature, whose words all can read and spell.

Verily, chemistry is not a splitting of hairs when you have got half a dozen raw Irishmen in the laboratory.

When a man's conscience and the laws clash, it is his conscience that he must follow.

The cart before the horse is neither beautiful nor useful.

Our moments of inspiration are not lost though we have no particular poem to show for them; for those experiences have left an indelible impression, and we are ever and anon reminded of them.