I think it will be found that he who speaks with most authority on a given subject is not ignorant of what has been said by his predecessors. He will take his place in a regular order, and substantially add his own knowledge to the knowledge of previous generations.

I bought me a spy-glass some weeks since. I buy but a few things, and those not till long after I begin to want them, so that when I do get them I am prepared to make a perfect use of them and extract their whole sweet.

It is remarkable that there is little or nothing to be remembered written on the subject of getting a living: how to make getting a living not merely honest and honorable, but altogether inviting and glorious; for if getting a living is not so, then living is not.

Making a logging-road in the Maine woods is called "swamping" it, and they who do the work are called "swampers." I now perceivedthe fitness of the term. This was the most perfectly swamped of all the roads I ever saw. Nature must have coöperated with art here.

Every tree sends its fibres forth in search of the Wild. The cities import it at any price. Men plow and sail for it. From the forest and wilderness come the tonics and barks which brace mankind.

When a shadow flits across the landscape of the soul where is the substance?

How often, when we have been nearest each other bodily, have we really been farthest off! Our tongues were the witty foils with which we fenced each other off.