In 1848, Thoreau went to jail for refusing, as a protest against the Mexican war, to pay his poll tax. When RW Emerson came to bail him out, Emerson said, 'Henry, what are you doing in there?' Thoreau quietly replied, 'Ralph, what are you doing out there?'

The inhabitants of Canada appeared to be suffering between two fires,--the soldiery and the priesthood.

An efficient and valuable man does what he can, whether the community pay him for it or not. The inefficient offer their inefficiency to the highest bidder, and are forever expecting to be put into office. One would suppose that they were rarely disappointed.

Oh, one world at a time!

I do not judge men by anything they can do. Their greatest deed is the impression they make on me.

A man sees only what concerns him.... How much more, then, it requires different intentions of the eye and of the mind to attend to different departments of knowledge! How differently the poet and the naturalist look at objects!

It is the marriage of the soul with nature that makes the intellect fruitful, and gives birth to imagination