The condition-of-England question is a practical one. The condition of England demands a hero, not a poet.

The night in prison was novel and interesting enough.... I found that even here there was a history and a gossip which never circulated beyond the walls of the jail. Probably this is the only house in the town where verses are composed, which are afterward printed in a circular form, but not published. I was shown quite a long list of verses which were composed by some young men who had been detected in an attempt to escape, who avenged themselves by singing them.

What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us.

So easy is it, though many housekeepers doubt it, to establish new and better customs in the place of the old.

The ears were made, not for such trivial uses as men are wont to suppose, but to hear celestial sounds.

That virtue we appreciate is as much ours as another s. We see so much only as we possess.

One attraction in coming to the woods to live was that I should have leisure and opportunity to see the spring come in.