Dreams are the touchstones of our character.

I can alter my life by altering my attitude. He who would have nothing to do with thorns must never attempt to gather flowers.

Perhaps we should never procure a new suit, however ragged or dirty the old, until we have so conducted or enterprised or sailed in some way, that we feel like new men in the old, and that to retain it would be like keeping new wine in old bottles.

Nothing can shock a brave man but dullness.

Where there is an observatory and a telescope, we expect that any eyes will see new worlds at once.

But, on more accounts than one, I had had enough of moose-hunting. I had not come to the woods for this purpose, nor had I foreseen it, though I had been willing to learn how the Indian manvred; but one moose killed was as good, if not as bad, as a dozen.

I came to love my rows, my beans, though so many more than I wanted. They attached me to the earth, and so I got strength like Antaeus.