Is it the lumberman, then, who is the friend and lover of the pine, stands nearest to it, and understands its nature best? Is it the tanner who has barked it, or he who has boxed it for turpentine, whom posterity will fable to have been changed into a pine at last? No! no! it is the poet: he it is who makes the truest use of the pine-who does not fondle it with an axe, nor tickle it with a saw, nor stroke it with a plane. . . .

My profession is to always find God in nature.

Men spend the best parts of their lives earning money in order to enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable part of it.

We never exchange more than three words with a Friend in our lives on that level to which our thoughts and feelings almost habitually rise.

Morning brings back the heroic ages.

Kindness to children, love for children, goodness to children-- these are the only investments that never fail.

It requires a direct dispensation from Heaven to become a walker.