I thrive best on solitude. If I have had a companion only one day in a week, unless it were one or two I could name, I find that the value of the week to me has been seriously affected. It dissipates my days, and often it takes me another week to get over it.

The man who does not betake himself at once and desperately to sawing is called a loafer, though he may be knocking at the doors of heaven all the while.

I never dreamed of any enormity greater than I have committed. I never knew, and never shall know, a worse man than myself.

Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other's eyes for an instant?

He who eats the fruit should at least plant the seed; ay, if possible, a better seed than that whose fruit he has enjoyed.

Perhaps the facts most astounding and most real are never communicated by man to man. The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening. It is a little star-dust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched.

I had often stood on the banks of the Concord, watching the lapse of the current, an emblem of all progress, following the same law with the system, with time, and all that is madeand at last I resolved to launch myself on its bosom and float whither it would bear me.