Books can only reveal us to ourselves, and as often as they do us this service we lay them aside.

The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening.

A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority.

He who cannot exaggerate is not qualified to utter truth.

I realized a school doesn't need a School Committee or Trustees or Governors or lumber or approved textbooks. All a school needs is a mind that sends and minds that receive. I shall teach my own students how to teach themselves. My own school. No buildings. Break out of the classroom prison. All I need is SKY. The Universe can be my classroom - the great vast world of the Concord countryside.

We should be blessed if we lived in the present always, and took advantage of every accident that befell us, like the grass which confesses the influence of the slightest dew that falls on it; and did not spend our time in atoning for the neglect of past opportunities, which we call doing our duty.

A man sits as many risks as he runs.