It would be no reproach to a philosopher, that he knew the future better than the past, or even than the present. It is better worth knowing.

You must love the crust of the earth on which you dwell more than the sweet crust of any bread or cake. You must be able to extract nutriment out of a sand-heap. You must have so good an appetite as this, else you will live in vain

I already, and for weeks afterward, felt my nature the coarser for this part of my woodland experience, and was reminded that ourlife should be lived as tenderly and daintily as one would pluck a flower.

A sentence should be read as if its author, had he held a plough instead of a pen, could have drawn a furrow deep and straight to the end.

Heroes are often the most ordinary of men.

I learned to regard man as an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of nature, rather than a member of society.

There is but one stage for the peasant and the actor.