We need the tonic of the wilderness, to wade sometimes in the marsh where the bitten and the meadow hen lurk, and hear the booming of the snipe; to smell the whispering sedge where only some wilder and more solitary fowl builds her nest, and the mink crawls with its belly close to the ground.

Scholars are wont to sell their birthright for a mess of learning.

The purity men love is like the mists which envelope the earth, and not like the azure ether beyond.

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

We must love our friend so much that she shall be associated with our purest and holiest thoughts alone.

Long as I have lived, and many blasphemers as I have heard and seen, I have never yet heard or witnessed any direct and consciousblasphemy or irreverence; but of indirect and habitual, enough. Where is the man who is guilty of direct and personal insolence to Him that made him?

The stars are the jewels of the night, and perchance surpass anything which day has to show.