I have travelled a good deal in Concord.

How long shall we sit in our porticoes practising idle and musty virtues, which any work would make impertinent? As if one were tobegin the day with long-suffering, and hire a man to hoe his potatoes; and in the afternoon go forth to practise Christian meekness and charity with goodness aforethought!

I would stand upon facts.

Books are to be distinguished by the grandeur of their topics even more than by the manner in which they are treated.

I live in the angle of a leaden wall, into whose composition was poured a little alloy of bell-metal. Often, in the repose of my mid-day, there reaches my ears a confused tintinnabulum from without. It is the noise of my contemporaries.

Begin where you are and such as you are, without aiming mainly to become of more worth, and with kindness aforethought, go about doing good.

There never was and is not likely soon to be a nation of philosophers, nor am I certain it is desirable that there should be.