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.

Carlyle said that how to observe was to look, but I say that it is rather to see, and the more you look the less you will observe.

In solitude especialy do we begin to appreciate the advantage of living with someone who can think.

There is ripe fruit over your head.

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

For my own part, I commonly attend more to nature than to man, but any affecting human event may blind our eyes to natural objects. I was so absorbed in him as to be surprised whenever I detected the routine of the natural world surviving still, or met persons going about their affairs indifferent.

While civilization has been improving our houses, it has not equally improved the men who are to inhabit them. It has created palaces, but it was not so easy to create noblemen and kings.