My neighbors tell me of their adventures with famous gentlemen and ladies, what notabilities they met at the dinner-table; but I am no more interested in such things than in the contents of the Daily Times. The interest and the conversation are about costume and manners chiefly; but a goose is a goose still, dress it as you will.

Late in the afternoon we passed a man on the shore fishing with a long birch pole.... The characteristics and pursuits of various ages and races of men are always existing in epitome in every neighborhood. The pleasures of my earliest youth have become the inheritance of other men. This man is still a fisher, and belongs to an era in which I myself have lived.

If I choose to devote myself to certain labors which yield more real profit, though but little money, they may be inclined to look on me as an idler.

We falsely attribute to men a determined character - putting together all their yesterdays - and averaging them - we presume we know them. Pity the man who has character to support - it is worse than a large family - he is the silent poor indeed.

There is a slumbering subterranean fire in nature which never goes out, and which no cold can chill.

It is impossible to give a soldier a good education without making him a deserter. His natural foe is the government that drills him.

If the laborer gets no more than the wages which his employer pays him, he is cheated, he cheats himself.