It is not part of a true culture to tame tigers, any more than it is to make sheep ferocious.

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.

How could youths better learn to live than by at once trying the experiment of living?

A man's interest in a single bluebird is worth more than a complete but dry list of the fauna and flora of a town.

Men will tell you sometimes that "money's hard." That shows it was not made to eat, I say.... Some of those who sank with the steamer the other day found out that money was heavy too.

If I seem to boast more than is becoming, my excuse is that I brag for humanity rather than for myself.

Homeliness is almost as great a merit in a book as in a house, if the reader would abide there. It is next to beauty, and a very high art.