Generally speaking, a howling wilderness does not howl: it is the imagination of the traveler that does the howling.

Maturity is when all of your mirrors turn into windows.

The heroic books, even if printed in the character of our mother tongue, will always be in a language dead to degenerate times; and we must laboriously seek the meaning of each word and line, conjecturing a larger sense than common use permits out of what wisdom and valor and generosity we have. The modern cheap and fertile press, with all its translations, has done little to bring us nearer to the heroic writers of antiquity. They seem as solitary, and the letter in which they are printed as rare and curious, as ever.

How wholesome winter is, seen far or near; how good, above all mere sentimental, warm-blooded, short-lived, soft-hearted, moral goodness, commonly so called. Give me the goodness which has forgotten its own deeds,--which God has seen to be good, and let be.

I quietly declare war with the State, after my fashion, though I will still make use and get advantage of her as I can, as is usual in such cases.

If I seem to boast more than is becoming, my excuse is that I brag for humanity rather than for myself.

A healthy man, indeed, is the complement of the seasons, and in winter, summer is in his heart.