How can you expect the birds to sing when their groves are cut down?

Nature, even when she is scant and thin outwardly, satisfies us still by the assurance of a certain generosity at the roots.

Critical acumen is exerted in vain to uncover the past; the past cannot be presented; we cannot know what we are not. But one veilhangs over past, present, and future, and it is the province of the historian to find out, not what was, but what is. Where a battle has been fought, you will find nothing but the bones of men and beasts; where a battle is being fought, there are hearts beating.

What is human warfare but just this; an effort to make the laws of God and nature take sides with one party.

Only he is successful in his business who makes that pursuit which affords him the highest pleasure sustain him.

In the wilderness is the salvation of the world.

By what a delicate and far-stretched contribution every island is made! What an enterprise of nature thus to lay the foundations of and to build up the future continent, of golden and silver sands and the ruins of forests, with ant-like industry.