They take great pride in making their dinner cost much; I take my pride in making my dinner cost so little.

We live thick and are in each other's way, and stumble over one another, and I think we thus lose some respect for one another.

While almost all men feel an attraction drawing them to society, few are attracted strongly to Nature. In their reaction to Naturemen appear to me for the most part, notwithstanding their arts, lower than the animals. It is not often a beautiful relation, as in the case of the animals. How little appreciation of the beauty of the landscape there is among us! We have to be told that the Greeks called the world Kosmos, Beauty, or Order, but we do not see clearly why they did so, and we esteem it at best only a curious philological fact.

The imagination never forgets; it is a re-membering. It is not foundationless, but most reasonable, and it alone uses all the knowledge of the intellect.

Who could believe in the prophecies ... that the world would end this summer, while one milkweed with faith matured its seeds.

The soul grows by subtraction, not addition.

I believe that the mind can be permanently profaned by the habit of attending to trivial things, so that all our thoughts shall be tinged with triviality.