Since most of us spend our lives doing ordinary tasks, the most important thing is to carry them out extraordinarily well.

In society you will not find health, but in nature. Unless our feet at least stood in the midst of nature, all our faces would bepale and livid. Society is always diseased, and the best is the most so.

A man of fine perceptions is more truly feminine than a merely sentimental woman.

Let a slight snow come and cover the earth, and the tracks of men will show how little the woods and fields are frequented.

He is not a true man of science who does not bring some sympathy to his studies, and expect to learn something by behaviour as well as application.

Most men would feel insulted if it were proposed to employ them in throwing stones over a wall, and then in throwing them back, merely that they might earn their wages. But many are no more worthily employed now.

I believe that what so saddens the reformer is not his sympathy with his fellows in distress, but, though he be the holiest son of God, is his private ail. Let this be righted, let the spring come to him, the morning rise over his couch, and he will forsake his generous companions without apology.