Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour.

Once I went so far as to slaughter a woodchuck which ravaged my bean-field,--effect his transmigration, as a Tartar would say,--and devour him, partly for experiment's sake; but though it afforded me a momentary enjoyment, notwithstanding a musky flavor, I saw that the longest use would not make that a good practice, however it might seem to have your woodchucks ready dressed by the village butcher.

The perception of beauty is a moral test.

Every man looks at his wood-pile with a kind of affection.

Resign yourself to the influence of the earth.

How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.

Men nowhere, east or west, live yet a natural life, round which the vine clings, and which the elm willingly shadows. Man would desecrate it by his touch, and so the beauty of the world remains veiled to him. He needs not only to be spiritualized, but naturalized, on the soil of earth.