As for fowling, during the last years that I carried a gun my excuse was that I was studying ornithology, and sought only new or rare birds. But I confess that I am now inclined to think that there is a finer way of studying ornithology than this. It requires so much closer attention to the habits of the birds, that, if for that reason only, I have been willing to omit the gun.

I have travelled a good deal in Concord.

It requires nothing less than a chivalric feeling to sustain a conversation with a lady.

We only need to be as true to others as we are to ourselves, that there may be grounds enough for friendship.

We love to hear some men speak, though we hear not what they say; the very air they breathe is rich and perfumed, and the sound of their voices falls on the ear like the rustling of leaves or the crackling of the fire. They stand many deep.

A truly good book is something as natural, and as unexpectedly and unaccountably fair and perfect, as a wild-flower discovered on the prairies of the West or in the jungles of the East.

Men profess to be lovers of music, but for the most part they give no evidence in their opinions and lives that they have heard it.