But man's capacities have never been measured; nor are we to judge of what he can do by any precedents, so little have been tried.

I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself than this incessant business.

The startings and arrivals of the cars are now the epochs in the village day.

Instead of studying how to make it worth men's while to buy my baskets, I studied rather how to avoid the necessity of selling them.

As for fowling, during the last years that I carried a gun my excuse was that I was studying ornithology, and sought only new or rare birds. But I confess that I am now inclined to think that there is a finer way of studying ornithology than this. It requires so much closer attention to the habits of the birds, that, if for that reason only, I have been willing to omit the gun.

To be right is more honorable than to be law abiding.

Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.