The merely political aspect of the land is never very cheering; men are degraded when considered as the members of a political organization.

I was more independent than any farmer in Concord, for I was not anchored to a house or farm, but could follow the bent of my genius, which is a very crooked one, every moment.

I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for that one.

I have heard of a minister, who had been a fisherman, being settled in Bridgewater for as long a time as he could tell a cod froma haddock. Generous as it seems, this condition would empty most country pulpits forthwith, for it is long since the fishers of men were fishermen.

Each reaching and aspiration is an instinct with which all nature consists and cöoperates, and therefore it is not in vain. But alas! each relaxing and desperation is an instinct too. To be active, well, happy, implies courage. To be ready to fight in a duel or a battle implies desperation, or that you hold your life cheap.

The knowledge of an unlearned man is living and luxuriant like a forest, but covered with mosses and lichens and for the most part inaccessible and going to waste; the knowledge of the man of science is like timber collected in yards for public works, which still supports a green sprout here and there, but even this is liable to dry rot.

In literature it is only the wild that attracts us.