It must be confessed that horses at present work too exclusively for men, rarely men for horses; and the brute degenerates in man's society.

The millions are awake enough for physical labor; but only one in a million is awake enough for effective intellectual exertion, only one in a hundred million to a poetic or divine life. To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake. How could I have looked him in the face? We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.

But, on more accounts than one, I had had enough of moose-hunting. I had not come to the woods for this purpose, nor had I foreseen it, though I had been willing to learn how the Indian manvred; but one moose killed was as good, if not as bad, as a dozen.

Only what is thought, said, or done at a certain rare coincidence is good.

To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women over their tea.

Most of the stone a nation hammers goes toward its tomb only. It buries itself alive.

He who rides and keeps the beaten track studies the fences chiefly.