A man might well pray that he may not taboo or curse any portion of nature by being buried in it.

For a man needs only to be turned around once with his eyes shut in this world to be lost...Not 'til we are lost do we begin to find ourselves.

If I deny the authority of the State when it presents my tax bill, it will soon take and waste all my property, and so harass me and my children without end. This is hard, this makes it impossible for a man to live honestly, and at the same time comfortably, in outward respects.

I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.

At a certain season of our life we are accustomed to consider every spot as the possible site of a house.

You will pardon some obscurities, for there are more secrets in my trade than in most men's, and yet not voluntarily kept, but inseparable from its very nature. I would gladly tell all that I know about it, and never paint "No Admittance" on my gate.

I sometimes despair of getting anything quite simple and honest done in this world by the help of men. They would have to be passed through a powerful press first, to squeeze their old notions out of them, so that they would not soon get upon their legs again.